The "path of least resistance" has not been particularly successful in helping the web provide a robust platform for application development over the past 10 years. I don't see why the hack-and-slash "pragmatism" should be expected to start working now.
Now you are just smoking crack. The web is hands-down the most widely used application platform in the world, and you're going to claim it's not a robust platform for application development? I don't know what planet you live on.
The web is the most widely used document platform in the world.
And no, it's not a robust application development platform. Working with it is an exercise in constant compromise between bad technologies and the quality of the user experience.
You're smoking something too, if you're equating the content-centric web with the breadth and depth of the market of native mobile and desktop apps.
Of course, I also get a better experience from the NYTimes mobile app; it's simply that the web can do content less badly than it can do apps.
I shudder in horror at writing one of our large apps in JavaScript, maintaining it, and desperately trying to keep frame rates up (yes, that does matter to more than just games), conform to some sane semblance of platform standards to which users are accustomed, reuse a platform widget toolkit, etc.
The myopia of the web crowd is why your platform continues to suck.
