Domain specific languages I suppose are the next cool aid. Or languages with a comprehensive macro system (like Elixir) can bridge the gap between these ways of thinking. This feels very frontend focused though - I'm wondering if there is a more holistic approach.

I have an idea for a framework/project, that over web sockets, views the browser as a thin client for a server side representation; commands would be sent from the browser but defined on the server. I haven't decided how this would work yet fully but it would be interesting to do the DOM diff-ing on the server and have the thin client only transfer the changes. This would hopefully make the initial payload extremely small and the changes being transferred minimal as well.

Are there any projects that do anything like this currently?

It can already do this for some kinds of diffs, but it doesn't have a full VDOM yet. It basically allows you to build interactive pages without writing any javascript.