Isn't every critique of programming languages necessarily very personal? After all, programming languages are languages. They help people develop and express ideas, and we don't know a whole lot about how creativity actually works and how it is influenced by the tools we use in the process.

Take inconsistencies for instance. An inconsistency between two things means that one but not the other can be inferred by applying a particular principle. But who chooses the principle that is applied to decide whether or not there is an inconsistency?

There is no shortage of "principles" in people's heads, many of which are not at all formal, maybe not even explicitly stated and they might not be called principles at all. They may be complex webs of associations, habits, or patterns that apply in some but not in other application areas.

Another such thing is the balance between generality and special casing. You could probably find out empirically what level of either is outside of what most people can use productively. But no individual is most people. So everyone has to decide what makes them personally productive.

The only regrettable thing is that so few people even try to find out.