Working on a large, Web-based, Java Two Enterprise Edition (J2EE) custom development and enterprise integration project for the last few years has taught us many valuable lessons. From generating HTML content, to internationalization, to interfacing with third-party systems, to efficient access to application data, we have tried several approaches along the way and have learned what works and what does not. In this paper we present a summary of these experiences with the hope that they may help others working on similar projects improve their own solutions and build upon ours.