1.2 million page views per month

1,200,000 / 30 days / 24 hours / 60 minutes / 60 seconds is 0.46 requests per second.

That is crazy low and is nothing to shout about. I notice people like to this in months to inflate the number to looks bigger. But calculating it down to RPS puts it to a perspective.

So why not create a website out of really, really old technology?

PHP 8.0 is no longer supported so I hope they update the "really, really old technology" to at least PHP 8.1 today.

As mentioned, JavaScript may have everything you need. Check out https://youmightnotneedjquery.com/