> This kind of superfluous interactivity is still possible with javascript/etc, but it seems to be less popular and is more likely to gracefully degrade
I'm sorry but— do we live in the same planet??
Either you only browse websites you find on marginalia.ru or there's no way you're possibly serious about this.
By my estimation, 90% of websites work better with all javascript disabled (by works better I mean they displays the content legibly and doesn't waste my bandwidth or CPU time with superfluous nonsense). 9% need first party javascript enabled. 1% need more.
Here's a short clip of me browsing the top results for pecan pie recipes: http://0x0.st/HJUU.webm
I chose this example because I think it's relatively representative of normal web browsing without a techie/retro bias, but the same demonstration works with links from HN too. All of these pages are rendered with javascript disabled. Most websites behave like these. Websites that need javascript, like youtube or various social media sites (including github, the only site presently linked on the HN front page that needs javascript), are a small minority.