I don't think anybody would argue that the alternatives are better than JSX (if it were, why use JSX at all?), the step that you want to avoid is transpiling js

I don't think anybody would argue that the alternatives are better than JSX (if it were, why use JSX at all?), the step that you want to avoid is transpiling jsx. Why? Javascript's tool chain is complex, once you're using jsx you probable want `react-create-app` too, and things begin cascading from there. It's only worth it if what you're doing has a certain degree of complexity.