This is exactly why I love HTMX [1] in combination with PicoCSS[2]. HTMX is just the regular html elements with ajax extensions built into the tags (it is a js library currently but they plan on lobbying to have these as default functionalities with HTML in the future) and picoCSS also works without classes so you are "trained" to use the semantic tags for the page to be rendered beautifully

[1] https://htmx.org/

[2] https://picocss.com/

What I don’t like about htmx is that you have html spread over two very different places - front end and backend. On the backend side you might not even have syntax highlighting.

If you use the principle of least power to make fundamental architectural decisions, you'll get stuck, very soon and very often when the requirements change.

People used to understand that too. But limited functionality frameworks became too enticing to ignore as a user (of the framework), and to sell as a developer. That lead the way into the stuff we have today, that are extendable limited functionality frameworks where the amount of functionality is so large that one hopes never to exceed it.

It's not that common sense gets lost, I think what happens is the lessons keep getting forgotten as the new generation enter the fold, and reinvent old concepts ("everything old is new again").

As an industry we don't do a great job of persisting lessons learned. Not sure how we could, I've got no answers, just an observation of what happens.