I was going to say almost exactly the same thing. The items that he listed are certainly detrimental from a startup perspective, but for a big company I think that they are actually arguments in favor of Java. Unfortunately for Paul Graham, and his prediction, the big companies have had more say in adoption than the startups. I agree with you. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense. But, it wouldn't necessarily have been obvious at the time.

Personally, I dislike the language wars. I think that a good developer should be able to write good software with the tools available. Arguing the opposite always smacked of the "silver bullet" to me.