I think you misunderstood the article. Video is not king - it's important, but it has it's place. HN wouldn't be better if all comments were videos.

In general, you seem to have missed the point of this article - it isn't comparing RIA's and JS, it's comparing 'old' JS frameworks and new ones, and the new ones are making big progress to being desktop apps.

I admit to knowing little about how people are developing these apps...

I don't mean this personally, but then why are you talking about this? Can we all agree to talk about things that we know about? I think that heuristic will benefit this community most.