I don't disagree with what you are suggesting. I personally prefer react over all other frameworks. And, there are many blog posts with outdated suggestions ref

I don't disagree with what you are suggesting. I personally prefer react over all other frameworks. And, there are many blog posts with outdated suggestions referring to the items you've referenced. Knowing which of those posts to skip over now that the proper solution has been named is what's really challenging about React (and, of course, JS in general). Probably the OP has seen two many of those posts and doesn't have the right frame of reference to know what to do, and Apollo looks like the same.