[tracker1]

I think a lot of attention is given tot he DOM diffing... I don't think it really means that much in practice as far as understanding the flux-like workflows and how applications come together.

To me, the unidirectional data flow, optionally immutable data structures and even tooling around redux (and similar) are what are nice. You have predictable, testable output without excessive complexity.

The need to understand a certain level of complexity in React+Redux in getting started is indeed a bit higher. But as features are added, that complexity doesn't grow nearly as much as with Angular.

I find the simpler node-like requires/es6-imports are easier to reason with than dealing with angular's weird DI system (though better in v2). Testing injection is supported via tooling (proxyquire and the like), and you can do full unit testing of your UI without firing up a browser.

I agree that full on FRP isn't needed... but will say that having data flowing in one direction, and events in the other can simplify things a lot. I'm also not sold on static typing for JS, as someone who really likes C#. I also think the use of classes in JS should generally be very limited.