I find it both sad and funny that the apparent reaction to "web developers aren't real developers" idea was for (particularly front end) web developers to create ever more complex tool chains and runtime environments, that always end up being more fragile and pedantic than whatever they replaced.
I echo the same sentiment. Call me old school, but I'm always a true believe of putting content first and accessorizing everything else.
Exactly. This stuff is progressive enhancement/graceful degradation 101.