> At the very least, I want to run some things without a browser frame of tabs, URL bar and so on without necessarily doing so in full screen mode.
Have you ever tried a Chrome Platform App? They don't have any browser chrome--they're just regular app windows, painted with whatever the developer likes--but they're still running in a browser. Sort of similar to Air/Silverlight.
But I don't like doing everything in a browser. All the things you mention are transactional, but when I'm (say) writing music I much prefer to be in a native environment because the transactional stuff is a much lower priority. It's distracting, for many tasks. At the very least, I want to run some things without a browser frame of tabs, URL bar and so on without necessarily doing so in full screen mode.