Demonstrating the point of my recent pull request to backbone: https://github.com/documentcloud/backbone/pull/59

afterMyPatch.js

var View = Backbone.View.extend({
  initialize: function () {
    this.handleBindings();
  },

  contentBindings: {
    title: '.title'
  },

  classBindings: {
    selected: '.title',
    color: '.someClass'
  }
});

beforeMyPatch.js

var View = Backbone.View.extend({
  initialize: function () {
    _.bindAll(this, 'changeTitle', 'changeSelected', 'changeColor');
    this.model.bind('change:title', this.changeTitle);
    this.model.bind('change:selected', this.changeSelected);
    this.model.bind('change:color', this.changeColor);
  },

  changeTitle: function () {
    this.$('.title').text(this.model.get('title'));    
  },

  changeSelected: function () {
    if (this.model.get('selected')) {
      this.$('.title').addClass('active');
    } else {
      this.$('.title').removeClass('active');
    }
  },

  changeColor: function () {
    this.$('.someClass').removeClasss(this.model.previous('color')).addClass(this.model.get('color'));
  }
});