Simple

I think this is the route I am going to go when I have to do another Java web application. I have become improbably enamored with horizontal scalability. The primary downside is that they started using xml configuration files. Curse you XML configuration. The XML config is just there to compensate for the lack of dynamic language features...

Seriously though- the old way of building Java web applications is seriously threatened by the latest .Net stuff on one side, and the dynamic language stuff on the other side. I think the .Net 3.0 is not helping much on the complexity angle.

It makes me laugh to think how much the REST architecture resembles the Java Servlet Spec. All of these frameworks to abstract away HTTP verbs, when that was what really needed to have application structures that are concordant with the architecture of the web itself.