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Thanks a lot Richard Uie for the sage advice. I agree that no UI is ever complete. In your opinion, are there any characteristics of UI codebases that make modification faster/easier? Do you think frameworks allowing you to drag & drop components or connect them to backend systems allow quicker iterations?

• In your opinion, are there any characteristics of UI codebases that make modification faster/easier?

Without shared understanding by all team members, no particular UI kit will be a panacea. With shared understanding, it hardly matters which codebase is employed.

I prefer to see deep knowledge in the fundamentals of the JS language itself. After that, frameworks either leverage that knowledge and chop development and support time, or they're useless. Any shop using a framework should have alternative ways to accomplish the same things but rely on only Vanilla JS. I don't want to see jQuery, even a minified version, included when only $.hide() is needed...

// convenience reference
function get(eId) {return document.getElementById(eId);};
// vanish element with id eId over a time interval of msecs milliseconds
function hide(eId, msecs) {
    if ('undefined' == typeof msecs) msecs = 5000;
    var delta = 100/msecs;
    get(eId).style.opacity = 1;
    for (var i = 0; i < msecs/100; i++) {
        setTimeout("get('" + eId + "').style.opacity = (1*get('" + 
             eId + "').style.opacity) - " + delta, i*msecs/100
        );
    }
    setTimeout("get('" + eId + "').style.opacity = 0;
    return msecs;
};

...or better still, a minified version...

function get(i) {return document.getElementById(i);};function hide(i,t){if(!t)t=5000;var d=100/t;get(i).style.opacity=1;for(var j=0;j<t/100;i++){setTimeout("get('"+i+"').style.opacity=(1*get('"+i+"').style.opacity)-"+d,i*t/100);}setTimeout("get('" + i + "').style.opacity = 0;return t;};

Basically, if there's any functionality provided by a framework that I can't imagine how to code by hand, I would be very reticent to employ the kit, I MUST be able suppport whatever code I push to production, If I don't understand the code, I can't sanely expect to be able to fix it when it breaks.

tl;dr: Ideally, get a kit that you well understand, and that a significant portion if not all of your team already knows. Second choice, get something well-understood by at least one really good Vanilla JS teammate - you need at least one good teacher for the rest of your team. Third choice, reexamine why you're changing - are you sure you REALLY need to take on significant risk at this particular time?

• Do you think frameworks allowing you to drag & drop components or connect them to backend systems allow quicker iterations?

Having not yet been tempted to tread that particular rosey path and knowing directly no one who has, I am not entitled to any opinion. However, I note that my lack of temptation may be an opinion in itself.