rodel posted some counter-arguments to using MonoRail in
his blog post, and i guess i just can't resist responding.
basically MVC is not a feature, but a way to do apps. in the end the main concern is separation of concerns. users don't care if the software they're using is MVC or not. as long as it works and it works well, it's fine with them. MVC is for programmers, since it can help make systems more maintainable for them.
my opinion is that web MVC is not MVC in the truest sense of the concept but it's more like adapting what's in MVC to web application development in general. my impression is that MVC uses patterns like observer to make the view respond automatically to changes made to the model, which obviously isn't possible with the pull-based web.
i agree though that it really depends on the programmer's preference. some programmers would prefer using something like ASP.NET web forms. some, like me, would like to get down to the HTML. the bottom line here is making software development easier
for us; what may be easy for us may not be easy for others.
by the way, MonoRail is not the only MVC game in town for web-based .NET development. there's also
maverick.net,
spring.web MVC and
NStruts. i'm sure there are others i am still not aware of.