I'm with you. I'm pretty into neat experimental frontend + css stuff, and I'm baffled by how passionate Tailwind's fans are. It always feels like there's something I'm missing.
I was of your opinion until I tried it. Been using it for over a year on my current project, now.
I recently built a little prototype without using Tailwind, and man… I didn’t realize how big a quality of life improvement Tailwind is until I stopped using it. It’s really hard to imagine going back.
Edit: I’ve been building websites since 2000, and know CSS quite well, and hope to never write much CSS again.
Agreed - they even include almost at the top of their homepage [1] a quote from the creator which includes: "If you can suppress the urge to retch long enough to give it a chance, I really think you’ll wonder how you ever worked with CSS any other way."
You should give it a shot, but IMO what makes it worth it is the Tailwind Intellisense plugin. I can design an element in just a few keystrokes, it's amazing.
In all fairness, I've never actually tried it.