Handlebars (handlebarsjs.com) solves several of these issues:

Items in lists don't have to be objects with fields; you can display primitives like strings and numbers by using {{this}}:

  {{#each tags}}
    <li><a href="tags.html#{{this}}">{{this}}</a></li>
  {{/each}}

Shadowing properties from parent context objects isn't a problem. Handlebars allows you to reach parent contexts with a '../' notation:

  {{#each comments}}
    <h2><a href="/posts/{{../permalink}}#{{id}}">{{title}}</a></h2>
    <div>{{body}}</div>
  {{/each}}

Regarding looping and conditional branching, Handlebars has an {{#if}} helper that does not evaluate to true for empty arrays:

  {{#if authors}}
    {{#each authors}}
      {{firstName}} {{lastName}}
    {{/each}}
  {{else}}
    No authors to display.
  {{/if}}

I don't fully understand the complaint about recursive data structures. I usually just register a helper that can invoke itself recursively.