The point is not how pretty the strings are. The point is there should be no strings at all. These are computer programs, so they should use normal objects. The python code `my_pod = nignx_pod()` will never throw a syntax error because the result has too many/too few spaces.
no one is stopping you from importing k8s types as protobufs and writing a program to talk to k8s api via protobuf encoding. all the types are already protos (except CRDs). it's just not the most user-friendly way so most people don't use it.
And plenty more exist today. But helm got popular first, so due to the collective action problem it's going to take the industry forever to switch off it.
Wait, but how does that help? Are text templates any better suited for creating JSON than they are for creating YAML? Trying to manipulate well-structured data as if it were syntax-free text seems downright deranged to me, regardless of the specifics of the format ...