OP here. Some of the tools are related to clients / hackathon sponsors - but most aren't. And s3 is an excellent tool for static site hosting. You can add cloudfront in a snap, it's stupid cheap, and you can deploy from the command line ( https://github.com/laurilehmijoki/s3_website is awesome for this.)

Also, I've actually used _all_ of these tools before, both for personal & hackathon projects. I know they work.