Nothing wrong with plain js. Now with Web Components, View Transition API, and Plain old Event + addEventHandler() you can do a lot.

You may want to consider HTMx and its hx-boost which is akin to Turbolinks if you've ever used that.

The addition of Hooks, HOC, Redux, etc. are for large teams, complex apps and/or varying skill levels.

Keep in mind plain js means no enforcement of standard patterns. This may cause problems with onboarding new devs and/or keeping the app manageable as complexity grows.

Also React and plain js are not mutually exclusive.

I also started around 2007ish, MooTools, jQuery, Backbone, Ember, Angular JS, Angular, React and now Nextjs. But for basic projects I usually start with plain js.