Great to hear your perspective on it ^^ , you're 100% right, it's all about compromises and that's ok
I'm also a fulltime software dev and I share the bad sentiment of using a tech that doesn't align with you... and of course there are other agendas as well as you've pointed out, like building a portfolio, having fun and practicing a particular skill
Just one last small thought... lately I've been facinated about the variety of tools that exist and how there isn't a perfect one. It's not even fair to compare a hammer to a screw driver, for example,... and Computer Science tools are no different. Some Domain Specific Languages, like the PDF generator language called Typst, changed something inside me hahaha.... I was so accustomed to CSS that seeing a layout approach so concise and completely different made me question some of my beliefs