If all you want is a select in React, you can just do `<select><option value="A">A</option><option value="B"></option></select>`. The tutorial is showing how to roll your own select-like control using divs. I doubt that it is much easier to do that using any other JS framework.
If "enlightenment" is realizing you can use React to reinvent [insert-library-here], then what's so special about it? Any half-decent framework can do that. I think the argument about composability and scalability (which imho are the real value-add that React brings over e.g. jQuery) is a bit lost in that example because it spends so much time on stuff that looks rather pointless and mundane.
Yes, of course it is. But reading a tutorial about how you could implement something so understandable as <select> using React is a pretty good guide to understanding React! At least, to me it seems pretty great.