> Nobody who worked in the 80s or 90s would have selected this solution

How does this support your argument? The tech didn't even exist in the 80s or 90s.

Saying "They wouldn't have made the same choices 40 years" is meaningless in this context. There's a lot of things they wouldn't have done back then that we do today. And this is a field that has been changing by the week recently, which makes even less appropriate.

This idiom now apparently means "I disagree with your tech choices" or in your case, "Someone 40 years ago would disagree with your tech choices".

Let me clear up your confusion.

I did not say they wouldn’t used react in the 90s (obviously). Anybody familiar with terminal uis (a technology which did exist) and perhaps any other ui system would not have chosen this design.

And no it’s not just me as evidenced by the many confused comments any time this is brought up.