That just sounds like poor performing developers to me. You don't need snazzy animations between states. Just not reloading the full page is a benefit.
That's what I'm saying: I maintain a complex web app that is built with PHP-templated HTML with jQuery sprinkled in as needed to make things more interactive. It's not perfect, but it's a far cry from the nightmare that people always seem to imagine when they think of "the jQuery days".
Would I use jQuery if I redid it today? No. But this app does prove to me that progressively-enhanced HTML is a valid path to an app today, it doesn't need to be an SPA.
