[eropple]

> Discourage 'any' but not been afraid of using it when must.

I've found that I rarely need `any` anymore. My solution has been `@ts-ignore` (and a warning coming out of tslint for that, to clean up as better typings, etc. arrive) and the `unknown` type, which better encapsulates the "valid" uses of `any`.

> I've had real headache typing API responses.

Swagger and generated library code has made this a lot better in my neck of the woods. It isn't perfect, of course, but it's incrementally better. (Obviously, if you don't own the API, it's harder. Though I've also defined Swagger docs for third-party APIs in the past and generated my own clients, if I understood them well enough.)