I don't know, it still feels alien to get a response from the server w/ an incomplete page and then wait for it to be completely rendered. https://groups.google.com is s a good example of this.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the loading problems with Google Groups are a legacy of Deja News code still floating about in there somewhere. There's no good reason why a single page app has to look horrible while it's loading data - a well written app should display a nice looking holding page that gracefully adds content as it's received over the wire.
