I believe you, but would just say that for me, syncing data between the browser and the server is pretty easy; it's syncing data to the DOM that's challenging. I totally believe Backbone is great that that, but it makes design tradeoffs for syncing to the server too, and I just found no benefit from that.

Anyways, I think we're saying the same thing. The question: how is Backbone better than jQ; many answers; Ko.js as a middle ground.