Well, whatever your opinion is of Spring (mine is negative) or however you look at this you need to acknowledge that Spring MVC is probably the best Java "Action" framework. Combine it with the fact that it's most popular framework too (arguably above JSF) and also the fact that people get things done with it on consistent basis.

My only complaints are something along the lines you mentioned - Spring overall and MVC specifically to me is framework without philosophy. It once had very clear philosophy, but now it become just mixture of features and multiple ways to do same thing. Once it was like "understand principals and let your mind do the magic", now its more like "there are no principles, just multiple snippet for doing thing you want - just Google it when you'll need it". Basically, it's no longer rewarding.

Second complaint is - Spring MVC, despite being so popular, is just not a 5 minute project setup technology, setting it takes time.