It seems I missed one framework for my reviews. It was just prereleased on 5/11: Adobe’s Spry. I can’t say how pure and unencumbered of client-side html/javascript coding it is, though this bit from the web site seems to indicate that it still involves some nitty gritty:
The first release of the Spry framework is a preview of the data
capabilities that enable designers to incorporate XML data into their
HTML documents using HTML, CSS, and a minimal amount of JavaScript,
without the need for refreshing the entire page. The Spry framework is
HTML-centric, and easy to implement for users with basic knowledge of
HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The framework was designed such that the
markup is simple and the JavaScript is minimal.
HTML-centric doesn’t sound too promising. It is only prerelease, so future releases may add some additional functionality. A screenshot of one of the demos is below. You can see that it has the usual highlightable table/list and an accordian pane component.
