The most pertinent Bill Higgins quote is this one: Gmail uses Ajax to accelerate common operations (e.g. email address auto-complete) and to enable data transf

The most pertinent Bill Higgins quote is this one: Gmail uses Ajax to accelerate common operations (e.g. email address auto-complete) and to enable data transfer sans jarring page refresh (e.g. refresh Inbox contents) but its core look and feel remains very similar to that of a traditional web page. In my view, this is not a shortcoming; it's a smart design decision.