Also for client-server applications, you have an abundance of choices for production-quality app servers that have the same J2EE interface (IBM WebSphere, BEA Weblogic, JBoss). Alternatively, you could use the Spring Framework on any server like Apache Tomcat the complies to the Servlet API if you're convinced you don't need EJBs. In contrast to .NET, it's hard to find choices with respect to app servers.
There are an abundance of choices with regards to frameworks for a given task be it an ORM tool, logging, collections, caching, web UIs, etc. There is no hardly any need to reinvent the wheel.
Finally, while it's fashionable these days to lament the very real shortcomings of Java the language, it's a language where folks know how to get things done and how to avoid certain anti-patterns.
