What gets me, and makes me sad, is how javascript-enabled browsers (and really the magic happened with IE and its XMLHttpRequest) are clearly addressing a need

What gets me, and makes me sad, is how javascript-enabled browsers (and really the magic happened with IE and its XMLHttpRequest) are clearly addressing a need the vast majority of the computing world has: running applications simply (without installing, because that's been made complicated) and with a reasonable expectation of security (sandboxed). For all the time browsers have been providing this, no one's ever come even close to a good alternative. That's why the JS-powered browsing experience will never go away, there's nothing like it for how people actually use computers now.