Maybe you have the luxury of users who want applications that have all the reactivity of a DMV form, but in my apps at some point I'll need the very simple priciple of "do something complex when this value changes" and reimplement useState/useEffect in an ad-hoc manner anyways.

I'm more of a backend/embedded developer than a web developer and I still honestly don't get how people find useState/useEffect as intimidating as your comment makes them out to be.