Where do you see Spring Framework going?

I need an expert opinion on this. Could be as subjective as you want, I don't mind. I was into Spring before, but I spent the last two years working with a leaner stack (Play Framework, Guice as a DI). I never stopped working with Spring, just put my main focus onto Play. Now, I'm gradually transitioning back to using Spring full-time again.

When I started picking up Spring stuff again, I was amazed not at how much I have to re-learn, but at how much of what I used to know, is not fully relevant to Spring today. True, the core ideas are there, but the implementation has evolved several times. It seems to me that the framework has taken a course towards catching up with cloud tech, and making a leaner stack that is more versatile, and can run in a variety of environments. I was also surprised to see the move towards Java-based configuration. I always considered XML, as boilerplate as it is, a nice way to entirely change the way an application works, without having to rebuild it, or modify the code. There is also the move towards convention-over-configuration that SpringBoot seems to have taken.

As someone who tries to get back to Spring, and step firmly on top of what Spring 4 offers, what should be the most important takeaways of the past 2-3 years, that I need to keep in mind?