Honestly most of what you consider to be good or bad is a personal preference. But what I can say for certain is that framework-less modern PHP is 10x less ugly

Honestly most of what you consider to be good or bad is a personal preference. But what I can say for certain is that framework-less modern PHP is 10x less ugly/complex and an order of magnitude more performant. There are a ton of new language constructs and features which puts it on par with, if not ahead of, most other languages. Here are some of the most recent feature additions: https://stitcher.io/blog/new-in-php-8 https://stitcher.io/blog/new-in-php-8 https://stitcher.io/blog/new-in-php-81 https://stitcher.io/blog/new-in-php-81 https://stitcher.io/blog/new-in-php-82 https://stitcher.io/blog/new-in-php-82 https://stitcher.io/blog/new-in-php-83 https://stitcher.io/blog/new-in-php-83 If you're looking for some fun content to watch about PHP while eating dinner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsnHWxO7Krw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsnHWxO7Krw