This depends entirely on what the customer is asking for, and how they're asking for it to be done, and whether or not they even care about fancy tricks or plain websites/web apps.
Non trivial example: client wants drag and drop uploads. What browsers support this functionality? Oh we can't do that in browser X Y and Z. Is that a problem? Oh, it turns out it is because manager A promised this to the CEO and she runs IE7 due to corporate IT policies. Crap. OK trade-off time, what should we do? Drag and drop for chrome that my boss runs or just stick to old school uploads? Use some plugin from jquery.com? OK let's do that. Now we have apparent 'automatic fallback' via the plugin but... boss wants it to display the image for confirmation in newer browsers, shit... Does the plugin support this? Yes? No? Let's say no now you're looking for another off the shelf or a roll your own.
Now you can say what you want about 'it should just work bler bler it's easy' but if you extract this attitude out to all areas of a software project you end up with the inmates running the asylum pretty much overnight. Like it or not, but the team or individual you are working with all have varied skill sets and you have to make work with what you have. The trick isn't 'just make it work with javascript off', it's 'deliverer something in the timeframe and on budget with the resources available' and those are different every time you embark on something.
Non trivial example: client wants drag and drop uploads. What browsers support this functionality? Oh we can't do that in browser X Y and Z. Is that a problem? Oh, it turns out it is because manager A promised this to the CEO and she runs IE7 due to corporate IT policies. Crap. OK trade-off time, what should we do? Drag and drop for chrome that my boss runs or just stick to old school uploads? Use some plugin from jquery.com? OK let's do that. Now we have apparent 'automatic fallback' via the plugin but... boss wants it to display the image for confirmation in newer browsers, shit... Does the plugin support this? Yes? No? Let's say no now you're looking for another off the shelf or a roll your own.
Now you can say what you want about 'it should just work bler bler it's easy' but if you extract this attitude out to all areas of a software project you end up with the inmates running the asylum pretty much overnight. Like it or not, but the team or individual you are working with all have varied skill sets and you have to make work with what you have. The trick isn't 'just make it work with javascript off', it's 'deliverer something in the timeframe and on budget with the resources available' and those are different every time you embark on something.