My favorite story is the client that came to me after a superstar dev made them a one pager with Vue, Atomic design and so on. Name a framework buzzword, and that onepager had it.
The client was desperate because the superstar Dev billed them 15k and then disappeared because his pre-booked hours where depleted and he didn't have any more capacity.
I rewrote the entire site in HTML + CSS + Javascript (all static) in 3 days in order to be live. Then I just turned everything into a simple custom Wordpress Theme so that they could change this or that image and text in a backend they knew.
Charged the client 5k (cheap for them, fair for me for a 4-day max project) and they were happy and thankful beyond any possible imagination.
I am not a superstar dev, I don't know all the frameworks, but I know how to structure content thanks to my larger professional background in media. I strongly believe that interpreting and guiding a client's wishes and goals is more important than what you build with.
If anything, "latest and shiniest" or "exaggerated abstraction" is almost never good for mid-size business with regular needs. That's a massive market with a lot of value to go around.
Exactly this!
My personal website is pure html and css on a custom backend. I do not find the combination lacking.
Not saying this is the case because I don't know you, but that's been the common theme for a long time.
It's like hearing a carpenter complaining their hammer is just not good and nobody should use hammers and they should instead use a screwdriver because everyone knows how bad and outdated hammers are.
[1]: https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/programmin...