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.