I think a big part of the problem is precisely the interpreted and web browser part of your post, so you're right, but I think at this point it's difficult to disabiguate the browser, the DOM, and JavaScript. I think JavaScript as a language also has problems that make it difficult to do large scale engineering with, thus transpilers.
Maybe WebAssembly will provide fruitful ground for new, simpler, and more rigorous languages.
I also think that much of modern web apps could be accomplished better with HATEOS apps doing pure server side. But I will allow that my beliefs there are at least partly nostalgic
Using Elm, even a little bit, has given me a perspective on what a different language can do in the browser.
If you subscribe to Gary Benhardt’s Capability/Suitability theory of programming history [1], JavaScript is the highly capable technology that can be used for any sort of architecture you can imagine, and Elm is a turn towards suitability that says, “some of those architectures are unsound or have a very low floor for quality.”
You might want to abstract over DOM APIs for different reasons, but at their semantic core they are fine.
Maybe WebAssembly will provide fruitful ground for new, simpler, and more rigorous languages.
I also think that much of modern web apps could be accomplished better with HATEOS apps doing pure server side. But I will allow that my beliefs there are at least partly nostalgic