&gt; It&#x27;s perfectly legitimate to sacrifice aesthetic elegance for the sake of adhering to well-understood standards.<p>React goes out of its way to make it look like you&#x27;re working with the real DOM, but in a different way. Take the event system for example: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;facebook.github.io&#x2F;react&#x2F;docs&#x2F;events.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;facebook.github.io&#x2F;react&#x2F;docs&#x2F;events.html</a><p>In that sense its even closer to the standards than Angular is - it still uses events instead of databinding.<p>&gt; the possibility that non-engineers will be able to work on things<p>Its highly suspicious that it was ever possible because of tight coupling between template and its data. Just look at an Angular controller and view. Tell me that two different people can work on that in parallel, one on the JS part, the other on the HTML part. Its impossible.<p>At best you can have a designer work on the HTML part first, then a programmer can import it (a fancy word for copy paste + add all the dynamic behaviour), then perhaps the designer can do incremental design-related fixes but might need to consult the programmer regarding the data. The programmer can also do HTML fixes but might need to consult the designer regarding how they would look.<p>Lets see if that workflow works with JSX:<p><pre><code>  * copy-paste: check
  * add dynamic behaviour: check.
  * tweak and maintain the design: provisionary check:
</code></pre>
If the designer really can&#x27;t handle the surrounding JS, (although given what you are saying it sounds more like the programmer cannot handle the sprinkled HTML), you can move the render function in a separate file:<p><pre><code>  module.exports = function() { return (
    &#x2F;&#x2F; JSX goes here.
  ); };
</code></pre>
Problem solved.<p>Anyways, this is just staying inside the box with old aesthetic sensibilities developed from a bygone dark ages era. React is a peek at what HTML and JS could be, if only they actually worked together. Its also a snide remark * implying: &quot;Hey WWW, you&#x27;re doing a crappy job at supporting web applications. Let me show you how its done&quot;<p>* not saying its intentionally snide, just that it might come off that way