One of CouchDB's standout features is that it handles synchronization of data across devices (not that it doesn't potentially do other things well, but I think the conventional wisdom for a while was: "If you want to do synchronization use CouchDB.")

That's nice, but I think that synchronization in general is less of a need as we've all become more and more connected and internet access has gotten more and more ubiquitous.

The core CouchDB devs are ex Lotus Notes guys and I get the sense that with Couch they are trying to "do Lotus Notes right" not thinking that the environment has really changed and synch is not the killer feature it once was.