[arrrg]

You are painting a picture with black and white where in reality there are shades of grey.

The dichotomy you are trying to conjure up does exist to an extent and it is interesting, but in reality no one even knows how to build a modeless mobile interface (that is as powerful as an interface that is allowed to use modes).

Deciding whether modes would be a good idea pretty much has to be done on a case-by-case basis, considering the involved tradeoffs. While avoiding modes is in general a good rule of thumb I have a hard time believing that it is realistic as a hard and fast rule.

(The characterisation of apps as giant modes doesn’t make much if any sense in the context of iOS.)