The more I write code the more I agree your sentiments, but when I start to reminisce why I got into web-design in the first place it had nothing to do with the web but more to do with the user's interface; thefwa's most influential [flash] site of all time is Eric Jordan's 3rd release of http://2advanced.com available at http://v3.2a-archive.com/. It is anything but minimal but it remains clean, intuitive to use, and downright awe-inspiring.
IMO, this is an example where a complex view [along with a modular sense of control] can work for busier interfaces.
[added_edit] I think your Stage 4 criticism holds true and for a very good reason, which is that most web-designers don't know how to control or present a view as something the_developer/the_user can rationalize and digest in visual terms according to the model of which it is representing. Generally, the view doesn't need to obsess so much in how the model looks but I think why 2advanced stands out in this regard is how he is able to encapsulate control according to the view and present a modular sense of what information means according to the spaces it occupies.
Hell is flash web pages. I go through tens of advertising agency websites a day and it's all that crap as far as the eye could see. I have to leave click-directions for people to get them to a particular "form", because the bloody thing has no sense of URLs.
It's OK for a design studio's website to be over the top, because they're trying to wow you. But outside portfolios and games, please just give me a vanilla, responsive websites.
You are right, web-site's design and a web-site's user interface are not the same. If anything the UI is just 'a space where stuff can happen' the design should be responsible for handling whatever is happening.
As long as HTTP reigns supreme as a transfer protocol, so will formatting source files as text...
IMO, this is an example where a complex view [along with a modular sense of control] can work for busier interfaces.
[added_edit] I think your Stage 4 criticism holds true and for a very good reason, which is that most web-designers don't know how to control or present a view as something the_developer/the_user can rationalize and digest in visual terms according to the model of which it is representing. Generally, the view doesn't need to obsess so much in how the model looks but I think why 2advanced stands out in this regard is how he is able to encapsulate control according to the view and present a modular sense of what information means according to the spaces it occupies.