"Only programmers look at it and say "yea, that's fine," because we know how difficult a web browser is to implement." No, not just programmers. Also end users

"Only programmers look at it and say "yea, that's fine," because we know how difficult a web browser is to implement." No, not just programmers. Also end users. It's a complete myth that the traditional link/page refresh method is jarring to users. It's perfectly normal and expected to click a link and to have it loaded in a reasonable time frame, without some weird transition in between.