I think you can blame compilation time for that. If you only use tailwind utility classes, there is no need for recompilation on every change but with @apply di

I think you can blame compilation time for that. If you only use tailwind utility classes, there is no need for recompilation on every change but with @apply directive and external CSS file, the thing gets compiled every time you make a change. I wonder if they can bypass compilation in development mode somehow.