[m_fayer]

I've worked on large and complex apps with MVVM in WPF and on the web with Angular, and have not regretted using MVVM for a second.

Databinding is indeed a leaky abstraction, but at the same time it's a very powerful one. I'm willing to learn the inner workings of the binding system to avoid performance pitfalls and other weirdnesses. I'm also willing to continually wrap all sorts of not MVVM-ready components to make them data-binding friendly. When people talk about databinding being a leaky abstraction, what I hear is "I was promised magic and it's not actually magical."

Also - there's many different approaches to how it's done with various tradeoffs. Compiled bindings on Android and the new Windows platforms look interesting, and you should also check out how ReactiveUI approaches it.

In the end though, I've never been able to achieve a satisfactory level of loose coupling, testability, and portability without databinding. Despite the overhead and occasional surprises, it's paid off in spades as far as quality and productivity.