Probably because I've been using `$.deferred()` for so long that I've forgotten the alternatives, but I don't see a clean way to avoid it without a significant reworking of the code. The problem that Deferred objects cleanly solve is manifest in the `$.when` statement in the code above. Ultimately the code needs to trigger a callback when all prior pages have loaded. Each of those prior pages (and there could be hundreds of them) indicates load completion through its own callback. That very scenario is exactly the use case for `$.when`, which is why the resulting code is so clean.

It seems like without Deferred objects you're stuck managing callbacks explicitly. And, in that case, the potential for hundreds of nested callbacks sounds frightening.