> where absolutely everything is foisted on the developer and they must hold the entire codebase in their head at once or drown.

I don't get that, and if that's how you feel I'd say you are doing functional programming wrong!

That being said, I do agree about Luminous and I think it's a terrible way for a new web developer to Clojure to get started. Instead build your way up for what your app needs pulling in the libs as you need them and understanding how they fit and work together. Chances are you don't need that many at all.