This "apps rather than documents" is hokum. Each time one of these JavaScript-mandatory websites is declared a case-study in web app development best practice, decrying progressive enhancement, there's normally something underneath about building a PhantomJS scraper so that search engines are indexing something more than a blank page.

For example, bustle.com's PhamtonJS emulation of being a good webizen: https://twitter.com/tyleralove/status/367494129091346432

I like how people keep pointing to Google Maps as an example of Web Apps, and how web development best practice is outdated: http://www.fixmystreet.com/around?pc=SW1A+2AA