Hi Sebastian,
Tough question
I'd like to think the hype is starting to die down a bit (I'm not a big fan of hype!), and people are making serious use of Ajax these days. That's certainly the path that we're trying to follow in the 'Ajax in Practice' book, to look beyond the hype to the real issues that face a project.
Within Ajax, there are certainly plenty of new technologies kicking about, and I expect we'll see Ajax continuing to evolve. Comet is interesting, as are the various attempts at offline storage/functioning (Slingshot, Apollo, Firefox 3's capabilities), and GWT is certainly interesting. I expect we'll see Ajax continuing to evolve, and plenty of isolated pockets of hype!
Dave