Ex-Macromedian here. It was the release of Flex (which generates Flash UIs by default) that started this trend. It was clear to me from the start that MM (now Adobe) had made a bad move with Flex because all the examples reimplemented basic HTML form + JS functionality in Flash, with a bonus "Loading" window at the start.
I know a lot of otherwise bright devs that were drawn to Flex by the MVC paradigms that littered the tutorials. Classic 'Architecture Astronaut' stuff as Spolsky would describe it which really didn't translate to delivery of better sites for users, especially once the JS frameworks took off.
In my view, the decision to trade off user experience and established standards for developer convenience is never the right one, but I guess it's a temptation if you're in the dev tools business.
I know a lot of otherwise bright devs that were drawn to Flex by the MVC paradigms that littered the tutorials. Classic 'Architecture Astronaut' stuff as Spolsky would describe it which really didn't translate to delivery of better sites for users, especially once the JS frameworks took off.
In my view, the decision to trade off user experience and established standards for developer convenience is never the right one, but I guess it's a temptation if you're in the dev tools business.