I totally get that--what I'm saying is that, much like something like C++, you can only practically use the subset everybody you have to work with will agree is acceptable. Threading macros, IMO, help but don't really
solve the readability problem, and it's still a far sight from Ruby, but it's a good step. But you have to get Bill the chin-stroking graybeard down the hall to use them when they're "not how he uses Lisp." Contrast this to a language with more guardrails--the equivalent of that threading macro in Ruby (or in Scala, or in F#) is just...The Way You Do It, it's the standard of the tools involved.
You're transforming a linguistic readability issue into a cultural problem of agreement and that's a waaaay harder problem to solve, IMO. Lisps are cool. But every problem raised to "cultural problem" is so much harder to solve. (When was the last time you saw an indent war in Ruby?)
