I can't believe it. Finally, a level-headed reason to dislike Java, and even then you only dislike it in the browser. Well said. +1.
USUALLY when people dismiss Java out of hand, it's because they're morons that don't know any better. They're actually criticizing the author of the program they don't like, but it's somehow not geeky enough to place blame where it actually lies, but with Java. I don't get it. Writing programs in Java that perform well is pretty difficult, and is very rarely done correctly. So, you better blame the language instead of the nitwit that doesn't know how to wield the tools they're using...
So, thank you. I agree that browser Java is bad. Agilent likely already had some tools internally written in Java that they just shoved into an applet, and that's why this web UI exists. Given how well node.js is these days I don't understand why small devices like this even bother serving .jar files either. There are many quicker ways to write a web UI. Or, just leave the Web UI off entirely; that's probably what should have happened.