It is some time ago since I last used it, but I found that too many websites that I want to read require Javascript to even show you the main body of text, or a reasonable layout. Is that different now?
No. Just whitelist the main domain for sites that are obviously broken. Then try one or two likely subdomains if that's not enough. In the rare cases where it still wants more crap enabled, then it's usually not worth the effort, close tab and move on to something else. As you build up a whitelist over time, it becomes pretty rare that you need to interact with it more than a couple times per day. Yeah, it takes some effort, but it's worth it to nuke cookie banners and sticky headers and videos and all the other crap people do with JS.
I already have that routine with uBlock Origin. I don't think NoScript offers all of uBO's functionality, and I certainly won't do the same dance for two extensions, but I'll look into uBO's abilities to specifically block JS.
Makes sense! I use both, uBO just does its thing and I never interact with it. NoScript handles blocking & whitelisting javascript. It's totally possible uBO has a similar feature and I just don't know about it.