Coming from a background in Django, I often use \"template inheritance\", where multiple templates inherit from a common base. Is there an easy way to do this in JSP? If not
Other options worth exploring include Sitemesh, which is built on the idea of page decorators, and Java Server Faces (JSF), which employs web-based UI components. And while we're talking about rapid development with web frameworks on the Java platform, I encourage you to check out Grails. It has the same mission has Django; namely, rapid web app development based on convention over configuration.
Hope that's not too many suggestion for one post. :o)