Hello! I was one of those annoying "architects" saying no, but it wasn't because only three languages are allowed. When I left the Times about six months ago, systems were actively being developed in the following languages: PHP, Java, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Go, Scala. (And ObjC and Swift, if you want to count those.) Plenty of unmaintained legacy systems in other languages, too. So proposals to add yet another language (Clojure, right?) were I think understandably received with some skepticism. It's not that it couldn't happen, just that there'd have to be a hell of a good reason, and there wasn't. It was unfortunate that months of work were invested before a proposal was written, but that wouldn't have been a very good reason to approve it.

For what it's worth, I agree with almost everything else you said.