> the biggest benefit is the complete separation of logic from semantics.

Then maybe allow JSX? The way I write my React components, the view is what you find in the `render()` method, and there is little to no logic there. The big selling point for me with React is that I no longer have to learn yet another templating language. Which seems to be somewhat where you are leaning as well. But being able to read HTML as, well HTML (or something very close like JSX), has a lot of benefits. Just going between code and the browser debugger for example. The mental step of translating between what I see in the browser and what's in my code, is in fact a step.