> HTML is marking up the meaning of the document. You should start there. Then style with CSS. If you need extra elements for styling at that point, you might use a div or span.

IMO this is the fundamental problem with HTML and CSS. You'll always have some part of the styling in the HTML due to needing extra divs and spans. At that point splitting the styling outside into the CSS splits your attention and Tailwind "solves" that by moving everything back into HTML.

Note that I don't like Tailwind, but I would rather have a way of styling that does not need to rely on the existance of extra divs and spans to work.