There is a trend that's present in other areas of computing too, but I notice it the most in web development --- the ever-increasing layers of abstraction, just to do something that doesn't need all that complexity. Certainly there have been good web apps that make great use of HTML, CSS, and JS, but most of the time it seems like we're finding more resource-consuming ways to provide none to little gain in functionality.
It's especially sad when people who for various reasons cannot or will not use the latest (mainstream) browsers with tons of features and resource consumption, or who do not have a high-bandwidth, low-latency connection, are essentially being locked out of easily using sites that have "upgraded", when they would've been able to use that site to do the same thing they could've done before (e.g. checking their bank account balance.) By all means use new technology to enhance, but don't use it to marginalise.
What they call a 'render tree' is pretty much just a scene graph, and they are moving to that as well.
It has some really good ideas in terms of architecture and good modularized code. (I would prefer cjs over amd)
On the other side it is very young:
1. There are some serious issues to be fixed, f.e. https://github.com/Famous/famous/issues/111 or https://github.com/Famous/famous/issues/74
2. There are no open sourced tests, I even assume there no tests at all at the moment.
3. They open sourced code but the development itself is closed. Its a black box.
I really hope famo.us will change this stuff and will focus more on the core framework and being real opensource product.
So when was the last time you needed a 3D data visualisation?
When VR arrives the coming years, hardware accelerated stereoscopic in-browser javascript, html or webgl rendering of 3d infographics, highfidelity/opensim hypergrid clients projects like this will fulfill the promise of VRML and the endeavours of the Web3D consortium. Projects like these will be made to good use, but for now it seems like cool tech in search of an application.
That said, making yet another 3D or 4D version of Conway's life, lightweight minecraft clone or stereoscopic mp3 visualiser in Famo.us would be nice pet project. In the meantime I'll master Ember-Charts and D3.js for the fancy 2D stuff.
I mostly see Famo.us as a way to bypass the ever-increasing layers of abstraction involved in CSS layout/positioning.
To understand what famo.us is and what it does, you really should read this thread by malandrew, their employee #1.
fwiw I am a famo.us employee