[osrec]

To a certain extent I have left it behind as well, but jQuery does add an extra level of convenience that is well suited to prototyping (and even getting things done quickly in prod). One example is the each function that works on object properties. Getting that to work on an older browser without jQuery is a bit convoluted, but with jQuery it's easy. Not saying it's the only/best way to do it, but it is probably the easiest.