You can think however you wish - and I agree with you - but if you want to be competitive in the modern job market as a web developer, you have to be fluent in client side frameworks.
I agree that having that tool in your toolbelt is important - it's not want the parent post was saying. He was arguing that you're either a Wordpress "not really programmer" or you're a front-end "big-framework-first" developer.
I don't know any front end frameworks either. I know Javascript, Bootstrap, and HandleBarsJs for template and I have done web pages knowing only those.
But no one would ever hire me as a "front end developer" or a "full stack developer" without knowing one.
If you're advocating for traditional server-rendered websites (perhaps with very small bits of interactivity via JS), then you're #3: A backend developer.
If you're suggesting building a complex client-side app, just without a framework, then I reckon that this is just a variant of #1. But you'd better be a very experienced developer, or your code is going to be a complete mess. This isn't really a viable path for a new developer just starting out.
Define "heavy." Right now I have react, material-ui and a handful of libraries in an application with an initial load (through main entry point) under 80k gzipped, and under 300k total load (1.6mb in memory, which includes app configuration data) when you navigate through to an area with graphs. This also includes SVG manipulation and image overlays.
In terms of what is being done, I'm far more judicious with removing unnecessary libraries. I've followed up other developers removing any number of modules in favor of hand-crafting from baseline modules. Since it's JSS it includes semi-dynamic styling that is based on async loaded modules. ex: if you don't go onto a chart/graph page, you don't get those modules.
It really depends on your tooling, knowledge and what your needs are. IMHO it's far better than typical jquery + bootstrap + bootstrap extensions that many of those who look down on client-side frameworks lean towards.
I'd go so far as to question the experience of someone who doesn't see value in React or frameworks similar to it for web applications. There's a large contingent that advocates for bare-bones JS development, but minimalism for the sake of it is not worthwhile.
It's all patchwork on top of JavaScript, though. Another programming language like Elm, or something that compiles to WebAssembly, may be another option to consider.
It is entirely possible to dislike React for being React, rather than for the fact that it's not minimalism. I have to work with React, and it's a constant source of pain for me.
What do you dislike not just about React, but categorically about that style of frontend development in general? Framework specific distaste I understand, but general philosophy wise I don't.
It's this binary distinction I'm objecting to. Is the choice really "Wordpress" or "React"? There's a huge number of projects that don't fit either of these templates very well. I'd still argue that people building web "sites" (which can still be way beyond the complexity sweet spot for Wordpress) rather than web "apps" should not be building SPAs.