Yes, you're right. Tradeoffs was more of a theme than a commitment to being comprehensive. I guess I meant to portray design tradeoffs and their implications, and sort of what perceptions I have about them. It wasn't meant to speculate about what could have happened if different choices were made, or where I feel I'm missing out, or even to be super-objective. The main message was that the interaction of the design tradeoffs guides our subjective aesthetics, and those subjective inclinations result in our programs. Plus, I just wanted to compress the case for clojure for different people, in terms of clojure's design tradeoffs and their implications.