Yeah, that always passed me off. I had little trouble writing cross browser code, but to be helpful jQuery would add code especially for IE that always got in the way when debugging cross browser compatibility problems.
I realize you're just being argumentative, but whatever. As a programmer you should definitely be avoiding micro improvements until you absolutely need them. Premature optimization is the root of all evil. No sense in wasting development time with something that is currently not a problem.
I was not being just argumentative and I absolutely disagree about product improvement. Product improvement is refinement which is absolutely not premature optimization. I honestly believe you are fishing for excuses to qualify mediocrity whether for laziness or fear of the code.
* Perhaps those 10 lines execute faster
* Perhaps those 10 lines are exactly 10 lines, where jQuery is 2 lines plus a 65k library
* Perhaps those 10 lines work equally in multiple environments (node, deno, electron, browser) where jQuery does not.
* Perhaps those 10 lines sit behind a custom abstraction that actually looks like a single method
* Perhaps those 10 lines do something jQuery does not
* Perhaps those 10 lines scale and extend in ways jQuery does not
* Perhaps those 10 lines have a desired side effect