How long did you program in erlang? I only did for a year or two but during that time came to appreciate the syntax as well evolved for the type of coding erlang was built to handle. There are a few syntax warts and many "standard lib" oddities due to evolution. For me, it did not take long before the syntax was very readable. On the other hand, I've programmed in javascript off and on for much longer and still find the syntax a bit ugly...to each his own ;)

There is ifene/efene (and Reia and Elixir if we'd consider alternate languages for Erlang VM) for Erlang. There's a CoffeeScript for JS, too.

Syntax can be fairly easily replaced - any good undergrad CS student should be competent enough to write a parser/translator. It's the semantics and runtime that really matter.

Syntax is potentially the most shallow thing to complain about, particularly when it actually makes sense in the structure of the language in question (like Erlang) and doesn't hurt readability for anyone (unlike some perceptions of Lisp).

Yeah those Erlang cooties. ewwwwwwww.