"It is difficult to argue against the idea that there are too many ways to do things in Scala. There is more than one way to do a lot of things, and I personally find the right way for me to be fairly evident after writing a few thousand lines of code."

And that is the problem. Most people will never reach the state of having writing a few thousand lines of code, because they are to confused to begin with.

In my mind, consistency is a prerequisite to a short learning curve. How can it be short if what you have learned in the past is constantly questioned along the way?

When the experts provide multiple ways of achieving the same thing, they force the act of making the choice upon everyone, which is a huge barrier for beginners. Scala could attract a lot more beginners, if it didnt make them think about choices at every step of the way.