Did you ever compared client-side RIA frameworks? Alexey Gavrilov [1] has written a great test to directly compare performance [2]: Silverlight (WPF/e) vs. DHTML vs. Flash (Flex) vs. WPF vs Apollo vs. Java (Swing):
"The goal of this test is to directly compare performance of different RIA frameworks / approaches in different browsers. The test, which implements simple 2D animation demo, was initially created in DHTML, then ported to Silverlight (WPF/e), Flex and WPF (XBAP). The code used in DHTML, Silverlight (WPF/e) and Flex is essentially the same while for XBAP demo it was ported to C#."
Here are the current test pages [2]:
- DHTML [3]
- Silverlight (JavaScript) [4]
- Silverlight (CLR) [5]
- Flash (Flex) [6]
- Flash (Flex) with cacheAsBitmap [7]
- WPF [8]
- Java (Swing) [9]
- Flex Apollo app [10]
- HTML Apollo app [11]
Of course, Alexey is offering all examples as source code download [12], great work!
You may also have a look at the cool Silverlight 3D demo [13] Silverlight 1.1 3D demo [14].