Native elements work if your design spec is flexible and aims to look natural on every browser and platform. If you have a rigid design they aren't as useful.

Native elements work if your design spec is flexible and aims to look natural on every browser and platform. If you have a rigid design they aren't as useful. Wouldn't be the end of the world if browsers actually exposed all of the relevant styling, but it does help to try and make flexible designs. HTML primitives make it a lot easier to reach accessibility spec. The date input in particular really is a mess though, every platform does it differently and phones have all sorts of weird widgets attached to it.