Yes, agreed, generate static everything on first request; i.e. hit the application server just 1X for live data and generate static file(s) that represent the request on the front end server (httpd, nginx)

That leaves authentication and CRUD operations for the application server to work on; the rest lives in-memory (via google mod_pagespeed, for example) on the front end server.

I'm taking this approach as I like speed, and I don't yet trust the JVM enough to handle tons of live requests and OOME on me while I'm out surfing ;-)