yeah, definitely it doesn't apply to everything. part of the reason is that digg was mostly a read-only site and it had to be fast and it had to work. I'd not advise the same thing for a real "web app".

I couldn't agree more. That's what I was thinking as I was reading it. News site, stuck, speedy but boring to some degree. The data-x attribute being an example rung home to take only bits of the advice in my situation.