Interesting.
Most of the stuff I've done for reverse proxies has been pretty straightforward and just using the stuff built into Nginx, but I have to admit that it wouldn't have even occurred to me to use FastCGI if I needed something more elaborate.
I used FastCGI a bit about ten years ago to "convert" some C++ code I wrote to work on the web, but admittedly I haven't used it much since then.
Also, embedded servers are now much much much more popular. Stuff an HTTP server directly into your application and do whatever you gotta do without gateways.