> In almost every other language this code would look messy or use some terrible recursion.

Nah, lots of other languages can do this.

Python:

    def factorial(i):
        return reduce(operator.mul, range(2, i+1), 1)

Ruby:

    def factorial(i)
        (2..i).reduce(1, :*)
    end

Haskell:

    factorial n = foldl (*) 1 [2..n]