The more I think about this, the more I think that maybe React already has the right solution to this particular issue, and we're tying ourselves in knots trying to avoid unnecessary re-rendering. Basically, this JSX... <Foo {...a} b={1} {...c} d={2}/> ...translates to this JS: React.createElement(Foo, _extends({}, a, { b: 1 }, c, { d: 2 })); If we did the same thing (i.e. bail out of the optimisation allowed by knowing the attribute names ahead of time), our lives would get a lot simpler, and the performance characteristics would be pretty similar in all but somewhat contrived scenarios, I think. (It'll still be faster than React, anyway!)