and his 'reloaded' workflow: http://thinkrelevance.com/blog/2013/06/04/clojure-workflow-r...
I haven't looked into them but the lein startup time kills me too. I love Clojure but I am looking at alternatives like Racket because of this.
I have Ring reloading code for me as it changes, however if there is a syntax error or exception in a thread, code doesn't get reloaded and strangeness ensues, requiring me to kill the jvm instance and start it up again. Stuart Sierra talks about this problem in his reloaded workflow, and how it's still a problem for him, but he at least now has a faster way of refreshing his app instances.