> NoScript [is] too much of a burden for everyday use.
No it is not. It actually removes most of the burden from my daily browsing. Modern web is mostly a bunch of obstacles between the user and the information, and with NoScript (or xombrero in my case) the user skips over that. I believe most of the users don't care about layouts, transitions, syncing between tabs, etc, it's all designers' and marketers' caprice.
If your website breaks without Javascript, then it's the website's fault for not properly implementing progressive enhancement. Javascript is useful to enhance the page with better features, but the page itself should work without it.
If you tools/framework make this hard or generate output that incompatible with progressive enhancement, then I suggest you find (or write) better tools.
I do wonder for how many sites does this actually make sense to do. Take the number of users who use NoScript and are not willing to turn it off when the site doesn't work without JS, and then take the subset from those who would actually be willing to pay for using the website. [1] Do these niche users really generate enough revenue to pay for the toolchain & work culture changes necessary to have this progressive enhancement? What's more, this group of users doesn't even receive the charity boost that some other niche groups like the visually impaired might receive, that would lead to changes even without direct financial sense.
[1] Being NoScript users, they most likely also run some sort of ad blocker, so ad revenue from them is likely zero.
Do you use the pointer that fopen(3) returns without checking for NULL? Progressive enhancement is mainly error checking and handing failures gracefully.
> not willing to turn it off when the site doesn't work without JS
Why are you willing to make your business look shoddy and unprofessional? Running without javascript has always been an option, and always will be. Anyone that doesn't run the javascript obviously isn't expecting fancy features, but you should still show any text/images (or a basic form if that is relevant), probably along a suggestion that turning on javascript will probably improve their experience.
> changes necessary to have this progressive enhancement
That's the point - this shouldn't cost a lot, unless your tools are unusually braindead. Rails made progressive enhancement almost entirely transparent a long time ago. I believe there are several prerender-the-first-load plugins for several popular frameworks. If your tools aren't doing this for you (either automagically or otherwise), then those tools are missing important features.
> work culture changes
It is probably a good idea to pay any technical debt sooner, instead of tying even more projects to bad tools.
> users who use NoScript
NoScript users are NOT[1] the only group that will see your pages without Javascript. You don't control the client, which will always be unreliable.
Also, progressive enhancement isn't a boolean value; you should be checking for the availability of any feature you use. This may result in only partial support, which is probably better than no support (or a javascript error) if someone loads your page in an old browser or something unusual. The web is inherently a fluid environment, which makes defensive programming even more important.
> direct financial sense
What is the direct financial impact of showing people a broken website? Do you even analyze the server logs to find out how many people are impacted?
NoScript has its place, for example in the Tor browser or in other high-security applications, but it's too much of a burden for everyday use.