For someone new to JS, as I once was, Require.JS can really complicate things. I know I read all these comments and blog posts saying "Use require.js!", so I thought I had to use it. Well, it took a long time to figure out how to structure my Backbone code that way. Most examples and tutorials aren't using Require.JS, and that also makes things harder. I would use it now on a backbone project, but not sure if I would recommend it to beginners.