No general purpose framework (or language or process or runtime model) will prevent you from making a project unmaintainable over time if you don't have a desig

No general purpose framework (or language or process or runtime model) will prevent you from making a project unmaintainable over time if you don't have a design and otherwise keep things organized. It's inherent in the flexibility that a general-purpose framework provides. Conversely, if you stay organized, you can maintain long lived complex systems based using frameworks of a variety of styles. I can assure you there are plenty of old DOM-template-based systems around.