[joesb]

Virtual DOM and ability to derived your DOM state from props and state is not something you can easily done with jQuery or any UI library that doesn't have that concept.

It's not something you can easily implement yourself either.

That's the main part that makes React code maintainable.

[quxbar]

I agree, this is the part that people seem to be ignoring. Yes, you can make a proof of computational equivalence between jQuery and React, but you cannot deny the massive increase in human usability that an set of components brings. There's far more interesting set of things you can do, Redux + the litany of other related libraries, a vibrant ecosystem unto themselves, prove this. I started my career out slinging jQuery and after 4 years of React I never want to go back.