Some of the stuff we have been adding since then is GOOD though.

Some examples:

We now have to accommodate all types of user agents, and we do that very well.

We now have complex navigation menus that cannot be accessible without JavaScript, and we do that very well.

Our image elements can now have lots of attributes that add a bit of weight but improve the experience a lot.

Etc.

Also, things are improving/self-correcting. I saw a listing the other day for senior dev with really good knowledge of the vanilla stuff. The company wants to cut down on the use of their FE framework of choice.

I cannot remember seeing listings like that in 2020 or 2021.

PS.

I did not mean this reply as a counterpoint.

What I meant to say is, even if we leave aside the SPAs that should not be SPAs, we see the problem in simple document pages too. We have been adding lots of stuff there too. Some is good but some is bad.