Except if you'd read the article you'd know that when running HTML5 things (apps?) that do similar things to Flash, the CPU gets a similar hit as to when Flash does it. This is the point of the article: multimedia web content along the lines of what flash does (excepting video playback) is by its nature something that utilizes significant CPU power. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Exactly. If it's hogging the CPU, it's hogging the CPU--it's irrelevant if it's more or less a hog than something else really.

Truth be told, I'm only running a Mac Mini. That being said, iTunes seems to be more efficient at streaming audio, video. Other desktop applications seem to do a better job at graphics in general.

I guess part of the performance hit one experiences with Flash is due to the overhead of a nice cross-browser, cross-platform, web-oriented runtime. Java applets, which do more or less the same thing, are also pitifully sluggish, in my experience.