My bet is when you get back to "basics", you will end up writing some ( probably worse ) rendition of views, models, collections, and events.

They are the most basic components of any good UI and if you find yourself deviating from them too much you're probably in the early stages of Dunning Kruger. My advice. God knows I learned the heard way. Develop a little humility and learn from the decades worth of history of people who came before us.

None of these application architecture problems are new. Backbone is simply the re-introduction of time tested historical principles to all you young amnesiacs.