What's old is new again. I recall ASP.NET had some interesting tech around this in the 2000s where it could dynamically update parts of the page.
If I recall correctly, this made use of that new technology of the time called "XMLHttpRequest" (/s) which pretty much jump-started web 2.0.
My thought exactly, though I fully support that. I often rant about how the modern web is billions of layers of duck tape over duck tape and it has become an unmanageable mess of libraries, frameworks, resources, all while javascript remains the most outrageous and absurd language ever created. I'm by no means a fan of rails or ruby for that matter but I think things like these are a considerably better alternative than all the ridiculous libraries and frameworks everyone uses, which result megabytes of javascript and require corporate-grade bandwidth and at least an 8-th gen i7 and at least 8gb of memory to open. And all that to open a website which has 3 images and a contact form. I mean someone should create a package that analyzes websites and creates a minimum requirements manifest. It's good to see that there are people who are trying to bring some sanity.
Javascript as a language is actually pretty decent these days, your criticism probably applies more to certain parts of the ecosystem.