Yet we all managed to write complex web applications without much trouble that performed better than React ever can. DOM manipulation was needed rarely actually - usually you replace subtrees anyways (switch tabs, etc).
If DOM manipulation is rarely needed then your web app isn't complex, it's at most a collection of CRUD pages. UI Frameworks like React are for building UI's that accomplish a lot more than that through frequent DOM manipulation. If all you need is CRUD then templating frameworks still exist, are well maintained, and widely in use.
That's not true as soon as your UI contains conditional logic or a list of elements, at least one of which will be present in almost every web application.
