I feel you and I think it is more of a "React + TypeScript" problem than a TypeScript problem.

We have started using Angular 2 (now.. 6?) with TypeScript for a project last year and I never had big issues with TypeScript.

Last month, one of our teams started a React project and given the success of using TypeScript before, they opted to do the same with their project. I've walked them through a few things but found myself getting frustrated a lot with weird TypeScript errors. Especially things like typing your Props was such a nightmare that we resorted to "any" a lot more than I'd like.

The project is not using TypeScript 3 so I am unsure whether that would get rid of some problems but React + TypeScript was just a frustrating experience for us.