I agree, just use React from day one. The reality is that web pages are hardly ever perfectly static, and once there's any dynamic nature to it at all you need something like React or else you'll have a train wreck of JS DOM-manipulation calls before you know it. React is perfect. You just update your state and the page magically re-renders. It's a breeze.
Multiple times in this thread you have been taking the hardline stance that a framework is always necessary while stating that others are saying the same in the opposite direction. In reality, most people seemingly advocating for non-React are actually saying to start simple and add the complexity where and when it’s needed.
Further, being against a bloated framework is not the same as being against frameworks. Those frameworks are actually principles. It’s possible for a team to come up with or use existing principles without using a framework.
Finally, “always use React” brings other costs. You need a team to build your system twice. That means you need bigger teams; more funding to do the same thing, and so on. You add complexity at the team level and at the software level when using frameworks. The person above you said that blindly “following best practices” is bad while stating a “best practice” of always start with React. That particular “best practice” not always being the best practice is the entire point of this thread.