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Having talked to a bunch of very experienced LISPers recently (including Richard Gabriel) about this very topic, it appears to be the case that most people go wild with macros for a little while, but this passes and then you write fairly straightforward code.

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I've written CL macros. I've noticed that for me, the probability of long-term use seems proportional to the size of a macro's implementation. The more work a macro does, the less likely I'm to revert to "straightforward code".

There is no single answer for that. Some code from experienced Lisp developers uses a lot of macros. Others don't like that style. It also depends on what you are writing.

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