As I alluded to in my comment, I have a ton of experience with such systems. And no, it was not some "golf-and-steak-dinner" - it was funded by a non-profit environmental organization, literally. I'm serious, AMA. Don't make shit up - reconsider your first point.

Your second point re: how model-driven code generation can be a dead-end... I totally agree. I didn't say it was a good idea! But it was motivated by a real need: generating lots of web apps in a particular domain.