Hey Tim - about this last line of your post on numerics in Java:

And the “My thought-experiment language solved that in 1976” mantra is boring.

Hmm. So Smalltalk is a "thought experiment" languages, eh? While it don't have the adoption level of Java, there are two things you ought to keep in mind:

• It's used in the real world (and the vendor behind the main one, Cincom Smalltalk, actually turns a profit on it. Unlike some language vendors I might mention).
• Having a type system that is both consistent and actually works isn't a "thought experiment". How Java measures up in that regard is an exercise best left to the reader.