How do you implement, e.g. a sortable table if the server sends HTML rather than JSON? Have we gone full circle and gone back to jQuery?
IMHO something slightly more complex than this example (more client side stat) will require using something like React/Vue/Svelte. But there's no need to rewrite the whole FE. Just create a component that performs the rich client side interaction and use HTMX for the rest of your app. Win-Win.