I was one of those that really felt like Runes was going to ruin svelte. But after working with it on a small team for a month now, I can see the benefits. We previously had a lot of devs confused with `$:` and other reactive issues. It had always made perfect sense to me but I have to admit, it was a bit magical which was apparently too much for some. With the runes stuff I've seen it click with people in ways it didn't previously. I did like the elegance of the old syntax but I'll take the explicitness of runes if it gets my team on board and causes fewer issues.