What GUI frameworks out there are more pleasant to write client-server GUI apps in than the modern web? I'm amazed at how we got where we are, too. But I don't

What GUI frameworks out there are more pleasant to write client-server GUI apps in than the modern web? I'm amazed at how we got where we are, too. But I don't feel that it's a particularly shaky combination. A markup format, the abstraction of stylesheets, and a powerful scripting language to make the documents 'alive' - it seems like The Elements. I really feel as though, if we set out to do better than the web, we'd either end up with applets or what we have now.