The browser has had a powerful scripting language built in as a core primitive for decades, and yet people would rather create more standards to avoid using it for ideological reasons, and then complain that there aren't enough competing browsers.
That’s not nearly as nice as being able to drop a…
<include src="/shared/header.htmp”>
…in anywhere you want a header. It being part of HTML also allows engines to optimize in ways that otherwise wouldn’t be possible and implement user-toggleable features like lazy loading. It can get better as browsers get better and is less likely to break than any custom JS I write.
It's something that people keep reinventing on both sides of the connection. That XSLT is the better of two terrible ways to do it, and that you're making the argument that the other one still exists, is an embarrassment.
Not at all. The existence of general purpose scripting isn't and shouldn’t be at odds with equipping HTML to handle a few very common, very basic tasks without JS. There’s plenty to be gained by doing so, including better ergonomics and efficiency. Even heavy JS apps stand to benefit since it’s that much less code to have to write and maintain.