We also had JSF, which was even cooler - being able to reconstruct the state server-side. It was ridiculously fast to write complex form-driver websites with that! No DTOs/schemas in different languages, no worry about how the client calls the server, what happens if it fails, etc.

The only problem is that it won't necessarily scale to some insane numbers without some care.

(Not sure why the past tense, it does work and developed still)