In OP's conclusions: "the DOM is slow, so use a framework that batches updates to it."

It would be nice to see a comparison of React/Om with some less naive approach to handling Backbone events.

In my own apps, for instance, I've dealt with rapid batch DOM updates simply by putting a short timeout on the event handler and canceling it if another draw-inducing event arrived in the timeframe (5ms, let's say). Doing that has led to similar order-of-magnitude speedups, and while not as sophisticated as using requestAnimationFrame, has been sufficient and maintainable.