PHP followed a very uncommon path. Features were added as needed, in an incremental fashion. Nice syntax is never a huge problem, though that's probably most people complaint. That said, it isn't worse than its "contenders" in terms of feature set. You get a decent object system, lambdas (note that they'd been there for a long time, but it's more convenient now), a wide range of bindings. It's not pretty, but it does the job in many cases.

But, anyway, if you're really looking for a good language (something efficient, where you don't have to spend hours to spot a stupid bug), skip the dynamic ones altogether, and go for as much static analysis you can get.