[duncanawoods]

> but the value of JSX is the ability to easily nest elements

There is nothing there that "makes JSX so powerful", its just hiding function calls and varargs. Its only xml-ish syntax. You are welcome to prefer it but its not adding anything functional beyond that.

    const Dashboard = (props) => {
      const {user} = props;
      let link;
      if (user) {
        link = 
            DOM.a({href: "..."},
                Components.Avatar(user),
                DOM.span(user.name));
      }
      return 
        DOM.div(link, ...some other content);
    };

[nkohari]

Yes, I understand how JSX works. My point is that it permits nesting in a syntax that is much simpler and emulates markup, which is familiar to web developers.

It's okay if you prefer to write code using the direct function calls, but I'm not sure most people would agree with you. I've built a product using direct calls (in CoffeeScript) and using JSX, and JSX was far easier to work with and less error-prone. YMMV.