On Sunday, I learned some more...
Java Server Faces (JSF) is in some ways a nice technology, but technically does not seem to offer that much over other frameworks. If you like drag-n-drop GUI design tools, JSF is probably your best chance, but that depends on the tool vendors. The reference implementation is supposed to be ready for production when it is ready, but that's not quite yet.
How to send a file to a browser
Proper use of caching so that you can survive when you get SlashDotted
XQuery is a powerful language that feels like a meld of Perl, Lisp and SQL. It supports XML natively, so you can just write it inline — no markers or tags needed to delimit code from markup.
WebWork 2 is yet another MVC application framework. Like Spring it is supposed to be flexible and lightweight. (Nearly everything else seems to be lightweight compared to Struts, which has huge marketshare apparently just because it was there first.)
Overall, the symposium was well-organized, with excellent speakers, a good selection of topics, no marketing BS and low enough attendance that there is scope for real conversation. Obviously the speakers have themselves, their books and their companies to sell but they do it in a way that does not distract from the subject we are paying them to talk about.
The only complaint I had was that paper copies of handouts ran out before a couple of the sessions. The CD that they give every attendee helps a bit, but it means you have to print it yourself or read PDF (yuck!) and it means you can't take your notes on the same material that's being presented (or you have to transcribe later).