Many, many code horrors exist today due to a deep and abiding fear developers have of appearing insufficiently smart. Most of the web apps that are being built

Many, many code horrors exist today due to a deep and abiding fear developers have of appearing insufficiently smart. Most of the web apps that are being built today have no need for a complex front end and, if they do, it's only in a few places. But, as you quote, programming is pop culture, so every new Form => Datastore app is going to be built using a toolchain more complicated than quake was built with.