jQuery is essentially a better DOM API than the native API. Hence it focuses on DOM manipulations, which, despite all we've learned about other important pieces

jQuery is essentially a better DOM API than the native API. Hence it focuses on DOM manipulations, which, despite all we've learned about other important pieces of client-side webapps, is still an important piece itself. jQuery won't help you much with architecture, but then again, neither will your text editor, and it's about as guilty as your text editor or the native DOM API of helping you learn JS or use it effectively.