Once I started using React in practice though, it turned out to be pretty nice. It significantly reduces cognitive overhead when thinking about frontend elements. And if you're worried about your javascript file starting to look more like an HTML file, composition of JSX components helps break things up.
Even if I can't convince you that it's actually pretty nice, you can write React without using any JSX. Just use a live compiler http://facebook.github.io/react/jsx-compiler.html to translate any documentation into the vanilla JS equivalent.
Once I started using React in practice though, it turned out to be pretty nice. It significantly reduces cognitive overhead when thinking about frontend elements. And if you're worried about your javascript file starting to look more like an HTML file, composition of JSX components helps break things up.
Even if I can't convince you that it's actually pretty nice, you can write React without using any JSX. Just use a live compiler http://facebook.github.io/react/jsx-compiler.html to translate any documentation into the vanilla JS equivalent.