To be fair to him, he did specifically mention isomorphic, in which case the js is running on both sides and the idea is that initial load delivers server-gene

To be fair to him, he did specifically mention isomorphic, in which case the js is running on both sides and the idea is that initial load delivers server-generated markup, giving the user content immediately then doing all the databinding later. Also, tricks like that are what users generally recognise as speed - similarly Twitter's optimistic xhr submission appears to work instantly, then goes off and actually does it's thing retrospectively. Fwiw I think a fully client side js cms app is a moderately rubbish idea for a variety of reasons, but js rendering of dynamic content absolutely has merit. It's a little more nuanced than slamming somebody's 'pit of false belief' because they like client view rendering. :)