As far as I understand (though I could be mistaken) the xstate hooks ensure that the component only re-renders when the machine has "settled" after a transition. I don't see how the dispatch function from useReducer is any different. Both useReducer/dispatch and useMachine/send are sending an event that is then handled before triggering a rerender.
IME, what ends up causing issues is the fact that the component calling useMachine can rerender with new state/props that the machine may depend on, causing the machine to sometimes have an outdated view of the world, since its own internal state management (for things like the "state" itself as well as context, guards, other functions) is not fully synchronized with React.
Sure but you have the same problem with useReducer too. If that is a problem then you should be pulling the call to useMachine up to an appropriate level then passing the service down for useService (in xstate) so that changes to the component don't impact the useMachine call.
