That is the javascript that makes the title edit work. It pretty much confirms my suspicion that data-role="editableTitle" is required on the <a> element in order for it to editable.
Just to offer an explanation of what's going on in that JS, when it sees data-role="editableTitle", it registers a few event listeners on that element. Namely these:
mousedown: starts a 1 second timer which eventually uses jQuery to add the text input element and hide the <a> element. It then registers another event listener on the input element that will send the update to the server on blur (losing focus) or on a press of the enter key. After the update completes, it removes the input and un-hides the title.
mouseup: cancels the 1 second timer or does nothing if the timer has already fired
click: It registers an event on this one to make sure that the click event does not go through (preventDefault) after a long click to edit has occured.