Let me tell you one thing, back before I'd written a successful AJAX app, I tried hand-rolling one using Struts 1.x. Time constraints and boilerplate-overload meant I basically, failed. So what's new - what am I going to say that will make life better for any wall-banging Java developers out there? DWR.
DWR f_cking rocks. Using a POJO, I can send stuff back to my JSP, piece of cake. It really is an AJAX magic bullet. It took just over half a day to go from no code to a working AJAX app. Nice.
In sysadmin land, I'd like to say how wonderful Zimbra is. (I'm just having a hard time with a couple of config issues - I'm sure a search on the wiki/forums will find them). You want an all-in-one groupware solution - choose Zimbra. It's based on many top Open Source/Free products - has AJAX and rocks (hard).
One to watch: Red Hat Developer Studio looks like a fantastic Eclipse-based IDE for JBoss users and JSF programmers. In the meantime (as a SJSAS/Glassfish/Jetty user) I'll stick with paying for MyEclipse.