Yes, IMO you're saving time if you designed in your use of the framework and properly leveraged it toward saving time. I built a Skeleton site almost 10 years a

Yes, IMO you're saving time if you designed in your use of the framework and properly leveraged it toward saving time. I built a Skeleton site almost 10 years ago. Do I want to put in a new framework now? No way. Do I feel like using skeleton now? Meh, nope. But do I need to update the site? Also nope! Because of the original plan--do about a month of work and then make future updates meet a minimum bar to qualify site design changes. I didn't feel like it was a maintenance gamble at all. IMO you can plan for the most likely course of long-term maintenance, choose a framework that matches, and be in a much better position. Especially if your site can quickly leverage the often nasty stuff like accessible form or menu frameworks, or modals. Plus, it's really not that hard to override most old frameworky parts for changes that work well enough. Details involved, yes. But clever solutions are really abundant at various levels. This is also why "elegance" in frameworks is a thing.