I'm pretty sure the creator's intention is that you basically don't use @apply at all, except maybe edge-cases where Tailwind simply can't be used (for example,

I'm pretty sure the creator's intention is that you basically don't use @apply at all, except maybe edge-cases where Tailwind simply can't be used (for example, I think before v3.0 you couldn't set print styles, i.e. @media print) The intended method of not repeating yourself in Tailwind is using a framework, and writing the styles in the template of the component.