Just catching up on some posts in the Yahoo group rest-discuss and there is some great wisdom in there.

 

It is the hypermedia constraint that makes REST as a style
greater than the sum of its constraints. It is the focal point
and amplifier of all the constraints.  – Aristotle Pagaltzis

 

Well-designed URIs are great, but they don’t influence whether something is RESTful or not.

- Stefan Tilkov