YouTube without JavaScript... it's a dream come true! But now that I think about it, it does have a lot of potential. After all, most links, with the exception of small filter links, should work as expected when following them (they open in other windows). It is very easy to make universal embed code using object so that there is no need for JavaScript feature detection, and most of the stuff is already managed server side anyway.

The only things which wouldn't work would be collapsible and expandable boxes (and I say this due to cross browser quirkiness, because it is theoretically possible), which can easily be replaced with an alternative layout, and channel pages, which wouldn't be as dynamic, but still could be made quite usable.

I also wonder, I think that by making these changes, they would also perhaps spend less bandwidth due to a simpler code and less use of JavaScript. These changes could be defended from a quite pragmatic point of view.