The issue is not that "the web is over complicated". The bigger issue is that people are allowing themselves to be brainwashed into thinking that everything is a "web application". Some sites offer benefits as web applications; GMail and Pivotal Tracker come to mind right away as good examples. Other websites like CNN should not be applications and would do end users a disservice by over-complicating things by making them JavaScript based.

One of the trends I'm seeing is that a lot of developers once they have built one web site as a SPA they seem to start thinking everything should be built this way. More consideration should be given to deciding which is appropriate.

I think this sums up the most poignant complaint against the javascript/node trend. It's not that we don't need SPA's. SPA's are awesome. But sites like Reddit and Hacker News prove that they don't need to be implemented everywhere.

>>For those of us who are building applications we need the complexity

I'm not saying don't build applications. I'm saying web applications can be server-only and should not spill over into the client.

Again there are exceptions - things like control panels or consoles do benefit from being SPAs. But in a lot of cases there is also nothing wrong or insufficient or unsatisfactory (from a UX perspective) about clicking a link and having the server send you pre-rendered HTML. JavaScript can still be used as icing on the cake to enhance those interactions, such as by displaying a spinner on the submit button and disabling it once the user clicks it.