What happened over time was that we developed a way of using Java that was less painful. And it turned out that the bones of Java are actually quite good. If you strip away a lot of the cruft people glom onto their code in the belief that it saves them time, adopt sensible ideas from how other languages want you to think, and keep things very minimal and consistent, Java can actually be quite pleasant.
But this requires you to have someone in your company that can teach people. Often peope with many years of experience who will initially insist on not changing their ways.
(The main reason I don't like Java isn't down to the language itself. It is because I don't trust Oracle. It took me nearly a decade to ditch Java as my primary language, but Go provided me with a viable option. Sure, it'll take some time still to reach the level I was at in Java, but after about 3 years, things still look good)
This might not be the most efficient way to walk, but once you've done it for a while it starts to feel natural.
I thought you had misinterpreted it, so I was trying to help clarify by extending the metaphor. In case we're still misunderstanding each other: the pebble is the language's warts, which you can't remove, only avoid or work around. Every language has its warts, but we're talking about Go's here.
You don't have to be rude about it.