In reply to Paul Fernhout.

In case anyone is interested in trying out the NarraFirma WordPress plugin as an example of a significant "decoupled applicaton", we have just put up an interactive demo version of it here.

A big tradeoff so far has been that the application can take twenty seconds to load (while staring at a please wait message). That loading time is due to two things. About half of that load time is due to loading dozens of unbundled JavaScript files which could be reduced by packaging (I've just not gotten to that yet) and maybe some other clever on-demand loading. But the other half of the loading time is due to loading the project data (about 1000 transactional messages), and that time probably can not be reduced much as the app already bundles 100 messages at a time (other than a faster server and more bandwidth) with each round trip (plus 100 database record loads) taking about a second. That part of the loading time would go up with even bigger projects. However, once the application loads, it is snappy, including generating charts and graphs and scrolling through lists of hundreds of experiential stories and related metadata.

We also have put up some more background information of the NarraFirma app effort in an entry to a Knight News Challenge on: "How might we make data work for individuals and communities?"

It could be interesting and worthwhile to enhance the WordPress platform in ways that meet the needs of many of the other 1000 or so entries to that challenge.