[nateabele]

So, that's accurate, but doesn't correspond to the situation. At all.

'Escape hatches' are definitionally exceptions to the rules, whereas effects in React are standard practice.

[ohgodplsno]

Because React evolves in an ecosystem which is wide and varied. It's easy to be Elm and have no escape hatches when you make the language, the libraries, the standard library and the world. It's a bit harder when you have to interact with 30 years of crap.