what aspect of the development speed do you feel is faster? i feel like i can write things like

    <select name=title><option>Mr.<option>Ms.</select><input name=name><input type=submit>

faster in html than i could in vb6. maybe i'm wrong about that?

you can try it in your url bar: data:text/html,<select name=title><option>Mr.<option>Ms.</select><input name=name><input type=submit>

of course that doesn't give you database integration, but if you just want crud, you can get crud pretty quick out of django's admin

here's a couple of things i've hacked up recently in dhtml which i think wouldn't have been easier in vb6

http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/ifs a 2-d iterated function system editor

http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/clock a watchlighting clock