At any rate, I went from being a staunch believer in the simplicity of Scheme's syntax to starting to think -- based on lots of observational data, and some preliminary studies (http://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Papers/Published/mfk-va...) -- that it's too simple (a failure of the "everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler" maxim).

But MIT's decisions are their own, and potentially peculiar to their specific curricular needs. Pyret was not influenced by them. Brown is proud to teach Racket and does so very successfully. Not every university is a dedicated follower of fashion!

And, Pyret looks like a terrible beginner language! I like PltScheme, but I can't see how anyone would ever want to use that.