This sounds like every project that I've ever been on. My co-workers could have written a series of these types of posts:

* MVCless GWT

* Makeless Builds

* Eclipseless Java IDEs

* Hibernateless ORMs

* Freemarkerless Templating

I've seen this story many many times. I'll give you one guess as to how many of these *less solutions were worth the effort put into them.