>which is exactly the opposite of how it used to feel when it first came out.

I use React (actually Preact), but the old way, not with "use" anything, no hooks. It's pretty simple, but does a good job at what I need, and I'm doing pretty complex web applications with it.

There's no law saying you must use the bleeding edge of everything, the old React way is still plenty good for most things.

The way they rushed out hooks and everyone jumped on board was a red flag for me. I've used it, I've built stuff with hooks, but it's always seemed like fixing problems by creating more problems, and the hype around it was ridiculous.