That said, Angular gets the job done. It scales better than people think it does (it's inefficient but modern browsers are just so fast it rarely matters) and it's a lot more complete than React. Angular is a full MVC framework while React is just about the V.
Typical evolution of new tech is monolithic to micro, frameworks to components/modules/libraries.
In the end micro frameworks or libraries allow more flexibility to change over time.
Always bet on the micro frameworks and libraries, they can be swapped more easily and typically don't create blocks in overall architecture/design.
The crazy roadmap to 2.x, and the decisions around 2.x in general just makes it a no-go for new projects at this time.
What does that even mean? It's very much alive and 1.4 is going to be released this year.
That's like the people who called Perl 5 dead because Perl 6 was announced back in 2000.
Perl 5 is dead in the same way. What programming language would you recommend to someone looking to learn programming?
In 2000, you could make a strong case for Perl.
In 2015, there are a half dozen languages ahead in line.
Anyone new picking up Perl is likely doing it just for a project. Same with angular.