The next step would be to move to websockets on the client (and also node, yes), and eliminate the Flash dependency altogether. I personally prefer to work in

The next step would be to move to websockets on the client (and also node, yes), and eliminate the Flash dependency altogether. I personally prefer to work in HTML/CSS/JS entirely, but there are some things that Flash does nicely - and it can talk to JS (and can be fast), so it makes for a way to extend functionality in some cases.