If you do that you'll reset browser state with whatever you're replacing. For example things like scroll position, if the user opened an accordion, etc. would all be lost.
I mean you're not wrong: end of the day htmx is just some javascript written on top of standard vanilla javascript apis. It tries to handle things in a more html-centric, attributes-driven manner than script-oriented approaches do, but it's nothing too complicated
check out fixi for our ultra-minimalist take on the idea:
> If you need bi-directional communication, then you should consider using WebSockets instead.
Or you just do a HTTP request?