> I think that the "lack of value types" is probably an overrated difference these days.

Well, seems that the JVM designers disagree, there's been a lot of work put into fixing this, see 'Project Valhalla' for instance

https://www.infoq.com/news/2016/11/valhalla-Implementation-p... http://www.jesperdj.com/2015/10/04/project-valhalla-value-ty...