> It seems as if there are actually a ton more special case primitives I need to know, when I could get away with a lot less syntax in other languages to be productive.

I think most special forms do not complicate syntax, as they look like your standard s-expressions, they just have differing semantics from regular functions.

If you look at Common Lisp, I feel like you got a point. It is a huge and complicated language, and while it embodies many of the nice Lisp characteristics, I feel like minimalism certainly is not one of them. But there are other Lisps/Schemes that are much smaller, with a lot less special forms.