> This site just doesn't work, period, without JavaScript

Direct quote from the http://www.coloredlists.com/ front page. I shudder to think of people out there emulating worst practices like that. Please, please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement.

Presentation logic mixed in with business logic? Non-reusable models? Yuck!

I agree.

But it shows me what a PHP and MySQL based web application may look like. It's a good glimpse of what web application looks like.