I agree that the NoScript folks can be ignored for apps. However, for web sites which consist primarily of rich documents, it's polite to at least try to convey the same information.

> Specifically building your app to attempt to handle the "bad data connection" use case that users already are familiar with in the context of the internet seems like bad programming.

Au contraire: It's the height of good programming to attempt to predict and handle as many real-world errors as humanly possible. If I'm writing a USB device driver, you'd best believe I should try to do something sane if the cable comes unplugged, rather than just saying "don't do that".

Also, not all users will understand that components didn't load (many users still don't even know what a browser is!). And if the failed load is due to a proxy/firewall/DNS problem, or just a straight-up bug, a reload may not solve it anyway.

In any case, you're spot on about prioritizing development to the audience. Guidelines can be a good start, but there's no "one size fits all" for the web.