I completely agree with this. I am working on a web application at the moment, and the server is very minimal. It just handles supplies a JSON-returning REST AP

I completely agree with this. I am working on a web application at the moment, and the server is very minimal. It just handles supplies a JSON-returning REST API, the index page, and some WebSockets stuff. Doing things this way is quite nice, and forces separation between the client application and the server application. It makes the web application just a client, on an equal footing with any other client (iOS app, Android app, desktop application etc).