Getting a little tired of reading these rants. People are building "applications" that just happen to run in the web browser, for convenience. They aren't building repositories for static information.
Yeah, these rants never account for the fact there there are a number of different types of websites, and tools for each. Don't use Angular or React for a blog for the same reason you shouldn't use Jekyll or whatever for an application. Different tools for different tasks.
The points apply equally to those things you call "applications" as they do to those things you call "sites". They're essentially the same thing. They're all functionality delivered over web technologies and for that reason, the OP's points still hold. In the case of a "web site" the functionality is "displaying content".
An "application" can be built using progressive enhancement. The OP even describes ways to approach this. There were applications before there were AJAX or Angular. Their experiences leave a little to be desired, sure, but they were certainly usable. A basis in simpler, server-centric interaction with enhanced, client-side experience jazz is still more in-keeping with "how the web was made", and with how it is consumed.
The rants are tiring, I think, because they're fighting some kind of (at least temporarily) losing battle and screaming for everyone to STOP DOING THE BAD THING when it's clear that they don't want to.
If Taco Bell decides to close their web site in favor of an app... well, a rant is going to change that, no matter how strongly worded. Blame consumer capitalism or PR firms or whatever.
It's frustrated prescriptivism. As a voice in the discourse, I suppose it has its value.
