Considering the sizes of the javascript libraries loaded by all of the websites, I find it unlikely that the page size for a static page will be larger.
The average size of a single page is larger than a doom install now. That's not because of orders of magnitude more of HTML. It's because of the 15 different tracking JS libs, analytics libs, effects libs, etc that are piled into every site.
With proper caching and today's connectivity it's far less of an issue.
AJAX-y still is nicer and definitely has its place but at least speaking for myself if I'm reading a blog or a news site I'd prefer a fast static page rather than a lot of gratuitious ajax animations and transitions.
http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/
or this:
http://worrydream.com/TenBrighterIdeas/
But documents like these aren't commonplace[0]. JS isn't used to enhance documents, it's used to make them much worse - because that degrading of quality and experience is how websites make money.
Apps are obviously a different beast. Most of websites don't need to be or behave like apps though.
[0] - which is a very sad thing; it's exactly the kind of advantage computers have over paper, and it's not being used at all. You either get dumb text that's even less functional than a book (think of articles rendered to image), or wasteful apps with shit-ton of ads and tracking.
99% of the Web is shit.
Also, most people have no clue about how websites work, and so they can't really imagine how they could look like. Moreover, most people accept whatever market throws at them, because they don't have any other choice anyway.
Apparently this is an unpopular notion. There's an entire protocol that's based on links between plain content - use it! The non-javascript users on the WWW are such a tiny minority that nobody who pays developers is going to bother with the time. The average user wants the extra functionality that even basic JS can provide - demanding that the web be supported without it is akin to demanding support for IE4 on Mac Classic.
That is the reality, folks. You don't have to like it, but you should accept it.
The content of most sites created today could reasonably been hosted on sites when IE4 for Mac Classic was current, text, pictures, form fields & buttons. You don't have to prove it but you should build such a site today using methods that would likely mean someone using IE4 for Mac Classic would have some access to the content, albeit not an optimal experience.
And uglier, and limited. While the people here might not have any problem with the entire web looking like Ward Cunningham's wiki, I doubt the public at large feels the same...
http://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/
See also: Almost any other local newspaper website, from anywhere in the world.
(And if they complain that things are worse than they were, they often misattribute them anyway. My mother blames a lot of things on her computer being too slow, even though half of them aren't really the fault of the computer, but of the lazy-ass companies putting increasingly bloated shit on-line.)