I'm disappointed that the discussion has (yet again) turned into debating the merits of Node rather than the much more important topic of where to place the MVC

I'm disappointed that the discussion has (yet again) turned into debating the merits of Node rather than the much more important topic of where to place the MVC logic (client vs server), regardless of the language/framework chosen. Node was just a personal preference for the OP, based on his performance requirements.