tl;dr: A developer rebuilt a UK utility company's broken React-based application form as an HTML-first site using Astro, with progressive enhancement via web components and server-side form state persistence. The form worked without JavaScript, on outdated browsers, and on poor connections, with validation handled by a tiny custom web component wrapping native HTML validation. After launch, form completions doubled overnight—revealing how many users JavaScript-heavy analytics had been silently failing to count.