It's true, that with static sites you're better off without any JS. It's pretty much how I've built https://discoverdev.io

It's powered by a home grown static site generator framework. Hosted on Netlify. Works fairly fast even random corners of India. But then I found my own generator limiting and surveyed existing frameworks - decided to go with Gatsby - a ReactJS based SSG. To my surprise Gatsby+Netlify worked much faster and smoother than my JS free solution! It's currently running at https://beta.discoverdev.io

Worth noting that Gatsby generates pure html+css during build time, and page renders fine without JS enabled. Seems to be a good balance between DevX and UX. :)