Channeling my inner dev, I've gone ahead and completely re-written this site. Original post for comparison.
Why?
The original site was... poorly written. It used React, which can be fine, but was overkill for a site that wasn't particularly complex interactive. And I've had a change of heart when it comes to SPAs: that they're useful when they're useful and not when they're not.
Free
Hosting this site is still basically free via Github pages (except for the domain name).
Fast
I switched from React and webpack to Hugo and I couldn't be happier. My build times are basically instant now, and the site is generally faster for users to load and to render. I may revisit turning this generate site into a SPA again, but it'd just be a vanity project. Each page's chrome is so simple I wouldn't actually save any real time by keeping it around and swapping out the content.
Fun
Eh, Hugo is great, but it's also opinionated and a little difficult to grok at first if you haven't worked with it before. Plus I've found the online forum moderators to be a little short-tempered. Overall I'm happy with my choice.
Fanciful
I added nifty slide-in effects for the header/footer and a fade-in effect for the content to make the site just a little bit more interesting. The moving backgrounds are gone, though, for now (☹️). I may add them back in a bit, maybe as part of a shared library. I'm imagining you import some CSS file and it handles the rest, but idk.