"The framework isn't the problem!" is something I've been hearing the apologists for lemon vendors spout for going on a decade now, and I think we need to decapitate this zombie idea once and for all.
First, *I know* that 45KB of JS isn't going to break the bank. Duh. That's not the point. The point is that the apologists *don't even have budgets*. Which means that *every* increment above zero is *a priori* too much!
Folks that can't say "when" aren't sophisticated enough to be using JS.