This seems like something that's technically true but not very practical: https://react.dev/reference/react/createElement#creating-an-...

It still doesn't solve the problem of scaling down to simple things. I think this is better illustrated with this codepen I made a while ago to implement a reactive button in React, Vue, Alpine, and vanilla JS: https://codepen.io/nbelakovski/pen/jEOVbyP

I tried to implement the React part without JSX, but I couldn't figure out how to render the function component, and while I was able to render a class component based on the old docs, I couldn't figure out how to use useState with it.

But going back to the codepen, the React and the vanillaJS both look messy, but I would take the vanillaJS over React if it means that I can sprinkle a little JS in my code without having to buy the whole farm that is create-react-app + npm + eslint + vite + all the React stuff I've mentioned.