I get the impression that a lot of people are trying to use Node for things it isn't particularly suited for. That being, 95% of the things you'd want to build on the web.

My take on Node is that it's what you use when you want to build an Etherpad. If your app will have 1000 people messing with one thing at once, with all their interactions propagating out everywhere instantly, you're going to want to use Node. If you're building a mmorpg-in-a-browser, you'll probably find Node will be a good fit.

If you're building a CRUD app, however, Node is likely the worst choice you can make in terms of productivity lost versus advantage gained. I mean sure you'll pull it off. But the kid who wrote the same thing in Rails will be on his third failed startup by the time you get your MVP launched.

There's probably a balance that you can strike for apps that "sorta" need Nodeishness. Use a standard, non-insanity-inducing stack for the bulk of the site, then keep a Node instance off in the corner to run the "App" bit that needs the realtime communication.

I think this message got lost somewhere along the way, and now we're seeing a lot of frustration from people using this cool, specific, technology for stuff that it's just plain not suited for.