edit: sorry, missed your edit. I'd probably agree with you and chc now. Obj-C was a clever hack for its time, but compared to modern dynamic/scripting languages, it's not really that special -- outside from being relatively high-performance due to its C compatibility, as you mentioned.

Obj-C + stringent/verbose coding standards = powerful APIs.

I've been writing Cocoa apps since 2002 and I pretty much love everything about programming on it, from the First Responder chain, the view hierarchy, bindings/observing, the new GC, blocks, properties, etc. (and more I'm forgetting) but I especially like how clear the design patterns are implemented. It's very rare to not know where a particular responsibility lies.

When it comes to the state of Mac/Cocoa programming, my biggest gripe is that Xcode 4 isn't progressing anywhere near fast enough. The IB integration should have happened long ago.

The iOS SDK is elegant and powerful in a different way. There is more syntax. Designs tend toward more exposed entities. However, there is less coupling to particular implementation strategies.

Let's take operations on dates as an example, specifically jumping to "the same day of the next month." This is not as simple as you might think at first, since months vary in length in an arbitrary pattern. In many high-level language libraries, you simply grab your date and you do a single call. (In Ruby: Date.today >> 1) With iOS, you end up having to use 3 different objects. (Calendar, Date, and DateComponents)

Working in Objective-C reminds me of the best of "mainstream" Object Oriented programming from the mid 90's. There is a bit too much arcana, seemingly too many entities, but if you work through some real examples, you find that some good thought was put into things.