> It's the same core concepts as ...

I agree that it feels similar to those frameworks. I'm not put off by that because it's a framework that's clearly learned from all of the above and refined the forumla.

> This is highly stateful, object oriented, mutate-by-defualt, class based, imperative programming, with imperative DOM manual wirings

Vuex is a state management library similar to Redux which you can use to structure your app. Vue now has functional components, and there are libraries that let you process form data entirely from the store.

Have you never used $refs in React code? That's about as manual as I've seen Vue wiring get...

> separate templates from view logic (probably the biggest sin)

I think this is more a matter of taste. I really like that .vue files let you specify things like the kind of style loader (css/sass/less), script type, etc. Everything's still in one file, but each part is separate. I think (if ? then : else) stacked multiple levels in JSX looks pretty ugly. :)

> v-model="todo", this.$parent.$emit

v-model is just sugar for something like v-bind:value="todo" v-on:input="setTodo", which provides an initial value and makes a simple function that sets the component's todo property, similar to how you might call this.setState({...}) with React.

I was put off by this.$parent.$emit as well. You can simply pass the delete function as a prop in Vue as well, which is what I would do.

> implicit magic that makes list.push() update the view

This part is a little bit magic, but of course you could use Vuex for a more complex application. I was under the impression that excessive use of the analogous this.setState is frowned upon - am I wrong? Doesn't it do a bit of its own magic as well?

> While I don't personally prefer any of the above style, the point is not a criticism, but to point out that fundamentally Vue doesn't seem to offer any different core concepts than other frameworks.

Vue.js, Vuex, and Vue-Router are all maintained and released by a core team that coordinate changes. They all have pretty good documentation. I don't feel like Vue is fighting Javascript. I feel like there's usually an obvious way to do what you want to do most of the time. Nuxt.js (built on Vue) is incredibly simple to set up and offers an app skeleton, express templates, SSR, automatic rendering and plenty more.

> React's fundamentally paradigm and convention shift... [...] As a biased pattern match, most times I see people comparing React to Vue, they're new to both, and don't get React.

I had done a lot of messy jQuery stuff starting around 2006 or so. I played around with Backbone for a bit on the side, but found it messy. I tried to get into Angular 1 but found it overly complicated for little reward. I tried multiple times to get into React, but (and maybe this is less true now) after you choose the view layer, you still have to put together the rest.

I like functional components, explicit state management, and Vue + Vuex has those. I don't mind template syntax - I prefer it separated out into its own concern. It's not revolutionary, but I think it provides a solid, sensible foundation.

> Building Backbone apps where you glue events to DOMs written in strings with magic stateful data classes...

I've used Backbone some myself, and I agree that event handling is just plain messy. I don't have this problem writing Vue code.

Re: your last paragraph I rarely feel like I have a Vue problem because usually the way to do something is obvious. And when I do the errors are usually understandable, and Vue Dev Tools browser plugin is excellent. You can easily pick apart your app and Vuex state with it.