Nothing in Web Components is forcing you to use ShadowDOM. Lit also allows you to make components without ShadowDOM if you prefer, because there are certainly cases where it can be necessary to do so (like for ARIA reference id-matching). For full single application development, it can feel like it gets in the way a lot, and you can make a good argument to use components without ShadowDOM in those contexts too.

All frontend "frameworks" do have some sort of solution to scope CSS to individual components, and without a similar solution, a native component system would not be viable. The implementation has its quirks, but it is a core capability that is necessary for some use cases. For third-party widgets or cross-application components like design systems, the ability to isolate your component from the site it is embedded in is very useful.

Think of shadowDOM as the web component alternative to scoped styles in Vue components (as an example). You don't have to use it, but it would be incredibly inconvenient if it wasn't included in the framework.

> Nothing in Web Components is forcing you to use ShadowDOM

Yes. There is just one thing forcing someone to use shadowDOM: slots. You can't use slots without shadowDOM or at least use something like this.children to capture the content inside the <custom-element></custom-element>.

But that is quite the important feature lacking.