Yep, I feel like there's less of a reason to use frameworks now that you can just have it bash out only the needed stuff on its own. I've been able to make some really really tiny C tools and I'm absolutely loving it.
My experiences might mirror yours to some degree.
I somehow managed to avoid the entire SPA scene. I feel so vindicated because I am absolutely zooming with my tried and true Vanilla JS these days. I have tried React, Vue, Angular, and ever just plain TS, and I hate them all.
Good point.
Maybe if this philosophy / approach has a catchy name it might be more widely adopted and we all can have better more performant web and apps.