The MVC pattern adds some clarity to what should go where when it comes to designing a page which requires some data from a data source. The model gets the data from the data source; the controller might do something with that data and then the view will display what the controller passes to it. If the page handles only a single function that's rather easy to both conceptualize and do. However many pages don't just do a single thing, and are made up of modules which may be user customizable and it is this I wish to discuss here. To give a none-cake example of what I am referring to, take a look at the google personalized home page and consider how in cake you would build a page which allows users to select and put various 'blobs' onto their page, and how it would be initially rendered. I choose the term 'blobs' in an attempt to avoid ambiguity with cake terminology.

A long time ago, I took to using elements as shown in the paste below.

I hope the time I spent trying to figure this out is saved for others :)