I don't see how a desire for flexibility (hackability) is a weird argument. But I do see why React works this way to keep the hacking to minimum; unfortunately

I don't see how a desire for flexibility (hackability) is a weird argument. But I do see why React works this way to keep the hacking to minimum; unfortunately I needed to 'hack' react to do what I was doing and found it's use of readonly variables and state setting and availability during the lifecycle process to be highly frustrating.