It's not just that, it's that every couple of months some "new hipster trend" appears on HN/Reddit and everyone jumps the train and declares that "all new web apps must be using angular" (or similar, you know where I'm driving to!).

But hey, hasn't anyone ever noticed people still build their websites in PHP (and some of the most used Web software is written in PHP, too)? I'd say, better learn PHP and solid HTML and try not waste too much time with learning a new JS framework every other day.

Chances are that if you use Angular today, in six months $new_consultant will say "oh, framework FOOBAR is much faster/easier, lets waste everything done so far and rebuild".

Not to be a contrarian; but I think this is kind of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

At one point YAML, or JSON were considered new, useless technology.. Why would you need it when you have XML? Look at noSQL databases, originally dismissed as a waste of time, but now they are proving to be important technology in the current day. Technology is only "trendy garbage" in hindsight; when its new we can't tell the difference between D and C#. JavaScript thick clients have some bad examples, but to call them flash websites is a little overstating it.

Successful JavaScript applications aren't a replacement for websites, they are a replacement for software application. Calling them bad websites is really missing the point.

Andoird and IOS are a thick-client and they work fine.

Maybe you should be less .js centric and more DOM centric in your thick HTML client.

Minor point, thick client is faster can can use CDN for even more speed. (and using tools like PhoneGap Build, is cross platform, a fraction of native).