Via my referer list, I ran across this detailed critique of Java. I especially liked this:

This "inordinate amount of typing" means that the language is not higher level then C++ and from this standpoint might be "one step forward, two steps back". We can ignore Simson Garfinkle's claims that Java is unsuitable for "major desktop applications" and that "it's better to train programmers to write efficient code than to depend on new programming languages to do it for them". The former point is common knowledge and irrelevant to me (with the current 3Ghz computer you probably can write a major desktop apps in Java; but that's actually true for Python too). The latter point is obvious and beside the point: it's portability between similar architectures (for example Solaris, AIX, HPUX, Linux) that matters most in the current economic environment; also tremendous industry momentum behind Java and money that IBM and Sun are putting into it can eventually lead to breakthrough that might substantially improve the quality of the interpreter and/or on the fly compiler. But it is "inordinate amount of typing" that really hurts: the language is verbose to the level that you hate despite its advanced over C++ - like automatic memory allocation. OO libraries often became a Babylon tower that buries the naive developer before he realize the magnitude of the treat ;-). Everything is possible in Java and everything is too long. Likewise Java programs tend to be longer than in C++ and several times longer than in Python and other scripting languages.

Some of the critiques have been partially addressed (like generics) - but always with more layers of complexity. The evolution of Java (and MS' C#, for that matter) reminds me a lot of Winchester House...