As Christian suggests the web.xml from GraphXQ does date from the old default basexhttp configuration (~basex 7.8?). Initially I was unconvinced by the change to what is the current default configuration but I have grown to appreciate it.
This old configuration gives you a http server with a special path for RESTXQ. This is nice if you want to be able to just drop resources into the webapp folder and have them served like a web server does, with a small or maybe even no, RESTXQ component.
The current web.xml configuration gives you a RESTXQ server with a special path for static files (/static/*.html etc). In my applications I try to design them so that the static part could be easily moved to separate server. A potential source of confusion with RESTXQ is that the path specified in the annotation is unaffected by the physical file path of the RESTXQ file.
If you look at the dba code does not use /static at all but serves static files by reading them from the file system and using RESTXQ to server them. This allows better control of the headers for caching etc. but is more work.
The nice thing is that once you understand the web.xml configuration you can choose either style.
/Andy