Echo JS 0.11.0

Very true, but in any project where you are looking for a "framework" to guide you, redux is often one of the better somewhat prescriptive fits.  I find redux + redux-thunks + redux-first-router to be a great combination.  Using thunks with async functions feels very natural/simple to me.

I find a lot of the extras in angular 2+ to be very convoluted.. and regarding Vue.js, it's hard for me to see that actually scale well.

Agreed. I mostly keep the state in some container components and only use redux if it's really needed. That approach works just fine.