Don't be too quick to dump your plugin or applet based portions of your application. While ajax and dhtml can do drag and drop and other advanced user interfaces there still limitations especially when it comes to browser support. Plugins and applets have been around for a while and have been able to make ajax like requests for years. Applets provide a great set of ui components and apis that provide developers literally anything.
Why do we use the xmlhttprequest object in ajax?
What is xmlhttprequest object in ajax?
Explain what is polling in ajax?
Should I use an http get or post for my ajax calls?
What does json stand for?
Do ajax applications always deliver a better experience than traditional web applications?
Explain the updatepanel control? : asp.net ajax
What is the importance of client-side libraries? : asp.net ajax
what is xmlhttprequest?
Which request is better with ajax, get or post?
What is the difference between javascript and ajax?
What is the syntax to create ajax objects? : asp.net ajax