I think webforms, or JSF, or coldfusion at the time served a critical purpose. In the early 2000s most of the growing web was indeed just forms with state (muc

I think webforms, or JSF, or coldfusion at the time served a critical purpose. In the early 2000s most of the growing web was indeed just forms with state (much of it still is). It's obviously changed much since then with client-side heavy rich applications, but those technologies at the time were very successful in RAD for basic CRUD, e-commerce, or basic data display.