Our code is more robust and legible. But we hide NULL under the rug

TL;DR: Avoid Nulls and undefined. If you avoid them you will never need Optionals.

Problems

Nulls
IF Polluting

Solutions

Remove nulls
Deal with undefined

Context

Optional Chaining, Optionals, Coalescence, and many other solutions help us deal with the infamous nulls.

There's no need to use them once our code is mature, robust, and without nulls.

Sample Code

Wrong

const user = {
  name: 'Hacker'
};

if (user?.credentials?.notExpired) {
  user.login();
}

user.functionDefinedOrNot?.();

// Seems compact but it is hacky and has lots
// of potential NULLs and Undefined

Right

function login() {}

const user = {
  name: 'Hacker',
  credentials: { expired: false }
};

if (!user.credentials.expired) {
  login();
}

// Also compact 
// User is a real user or a polymorphic NullUser
// Credentials are always defined.
// Can be an instance of InvalidCredentials
// Assuming we eliminated nulls from our code

if (user.functionDefinedOrNot !== undefined) {  
    functionDefinedOrNot();
}

// This is also wrong.
// Explicit undefined checks are yet another code smell