It's funny because you're willing to tolerate a lot more crap on the desktop all the time. If a web app has a "loading" screen you say "IT TAKES TOO LONG" even though the desktop counterpart takes twice as long. If the web app UI becomes a bit sluggish people complain, yet desktop UIs become sluggish ALL THE TIME, and no one cares because you're used to it…
The reality is, to build a web app you can't just be at par with the desktop counter part, you have to be BETTER. It's an uphill battle, but tools like Cappuccino and even SproutCore will help, but in the end it's still up to you to make the effort to bring your app up to 120%.
We're not listening to hash changes which is the issue. I'm not sure how I feel about adding a listener for the back button though… an app doesn't really have a concept of going "back" Feel free to file a bug and I'll look into it though.