ARIA is often a compensating technology more than a primary solution. I try to not use ARIA in my own code aside from the role attribute. I instead rely on the clear navigation and order HTML content and events as my primary solutions.
+1 here... <button> vs <a> in particular... if it's programmatic behavior, use a styled button if you want it to look like a link, and vice-versa for navigation behaviors.
I will add that a good component library should also handle some of this for you... in particular menu navigation, popouts/drawers etc. That said, can't say how many sites/apps have really broken behavior with this.
