I've used WPF extensively 10 years ago. It's nowhere near as easy to create a complex GUI as Vue/HTML/CSS. And that just for functionality. If we talk about looks, WPF is very clunky to theme.
I happen to have the opposite view, specially with Blend and component libraries into the mix.
CSS had to get WPF grid design in order to not be a poor table sibling in what concerns layouts.
While WPF is backed by DirectX, CSS requires playing with Z order, so that some browsers might eventually put the rendering into the GPU, but one needs to take care because space is limited.
While I can render anything down to pixel level control, if I wish to do so, I am still waiting for Houdini and worlets to actually become available.
And the whole template language with events and theming for low level customisation of control behaviours? Nowhere to be seen.
Using Blend feels to me like using Word to create HTML pages - the resulting output is horrible.
CSS layout was indeed a struggle many years ago, but now with flexbox I never failed to put stuff exactly where I wanted, and I barely understand it. And the new shiny thing, CSS Grid, is supposedly even better at controlling layout.
Similarly to many MS technologies from that era, WPF/XAML is not half bad at the core, but so verbose. Probably intended to be primarily generated by tooling.
Having been a Turbo Vision and OWL user, which lacked UI designer support, following up with VB and Delphi/C++ Builder, I never understood the macho attitude of doing GUI design manually without tooling support.
Any framework that comes with tooling support out of box is a plus for me.
Hence in what concerns Web, I care mostly about WebComponents, CMS middleware with page designers and SPA frameworks like Angular.
I reckon for designers are excellent for forms. The further you go beyond a data crud app, the less benefit you get from visual designers, because more stuff will be animated, contextual, custom, etc.
CRUD apps is a really big application space to cede, though, I totally think tooling is worth it.
It depends very strongly on how you used WPF. It had many footguns, due to a foolish decision to seemingly support the expectations of winforms developers.
CSS had to get WPF grid design in order to not be a poor table sibling in what concerns layouts.
While WPF is backed by DirectX, CSS requires playing with Z order, so that some browsers might eventually put the rendering into the GPU, but one needs to take care because space is limited.
While I can render anything down to pixel level control, if I wish to do so, I am still waiting for Houdini and worlets to actually become available.
And the whole template language with events and theming for low level customisation of control behaviours? Nowhere to be seen.