I was doing basically this before moving to Play 2. I just found there was a lot you had to decide for yourself. You had to pick a persistence layer, roll your own xsrf protection, do your own integration of a JS compiler/minifier, etc. I had something pretty good working, but got tired of having to write the code for every new technology integration myself. The thing I like about Play 2 is that I have an entire community helping me out with these things.