There is also a problem with the components state when working without weblow.

Test page setup:
[code]
<ice:outputText value="test"/>
<ice:commandButton actionListener="#{bean.toggle}"/>
[/code]

ActionListener setup:
[code]
public void action(ActionEvent actionEvent) {
for (UIComponent child : actionEvent.getComponent().getParent()
.getChildren()) {
if (child instanceof HtmlOutputText) {
HtmlOutputText output = ((HtmlOutputText) child);
if (output.isRendered()) {
output.setRendered(false);
} else {
output.setRendered(true);
}
}
}
}
[/code]

The action listener will lookup the 'outputText' and toggle its rendered attribute.
The rendered attribute is by default 'true'.

Failing test:

1. Open the page (output text is rendered = OK)
2. Click the button (output text gets hidden = OK -> implemented toggle behavior in action listener)
3. Click the button again (output text gets shown = OK -> implemented toggle behavior in action listener)
4. Click the button once more (output text gets hidden = OK ...........)
5. Now, hit F5 in browser
6. Output text gets shown (NOT OK !)

The problem here, is once again, related to setting the viewroot to NULL.
This is what happens:

1. I hit F5, browser sends GET
2. ICEFaces discovers this is a GET and sets viewroot to null
3. A clean viewroot is created by JSF
4. Components are getting bound by facelets, but there is nowhere state injected

NOTE: it works when BINDING the component to the action instead of looking it up via the component tree; when doing this the component instance is retained on the action.
The facelets componentHandler will (instead of creating a new instance) execute the binding VE pointing to the action containing the component instance.
This way the state is reatained and it appears to be working.