Because for many people, that's the tradeoff.

Think of a new project.

You'll still have "OOP" PHP + some random templating language + the infamously hard to do "sprinkles" of JS.

In the end lots of people start to shoehorn their PHP or Django CMS into REST API parts anyway, reinventing the wheel over and over again, for every new requirement.

I have nothing against PHP or Django or other server technologies with corresponding templating languages.

But to churn on the "old and proven" point in 2023 seems odd to me.

It's tradeoffs all the way down.