Most web development workflows emerged in an era of monolithic, server-side driven application development. Lots of server side code (as well as navigation logic and session state), relatively small amount of browser side code. In recent web app development, client side now has a larger proportion of the code and complexity. Developers tend to make incremental changes to their workflow rather than "starting from scratch" seem to miss the shift that has taken place.
One of the best examples of an efficient workflow (at least in theory) that I have seen is the Play framework, along with a browser plugin that causes the browser to refresh every time source code is saved (http://www.jamesward.com/2013/05/15/auto-refresh-for-play-fr...).
Not to take anything away from this but that's not really achieving the desired effect. There's still a browser refresh happening so you lose your state every time. You're still stuck in the same cycle. In an ideal world you would be able to change code in your editor and have those changes reflected within the objects already loaded in your browser.
One of the best examples of an efficient workflow (at least in theory) that I have seen is the Play framework, along with a browser plugin that causes the browser to refresh every time source code is saved (http://www.jamesward.com/2013/05/15/auto-refresh-for-play-fr...).