If it's a myth, the myth seems driven by the TCL team itself.
https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/everything+is+a+string
Yes, there is some detail about internal dual representation.
https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/everything+is+a+string
Yes, there is some detail about internal dual representation.
Maybe, but it's clearly been updated after Tcl 8. And while the page itself isn't calling it something that hampers tcl, it does cover that it's somewhat unusual, that is has implications, and so on.
It works well as long as your goal isn't to totally eliminate boxing of values.