I think it's not just the number of special symbols, syntax matter. When the eye see array[index], the brain can make some assumptions - 'array' is some sort of

I think it's not just the number of special symbols, syntax matter. When the eye see array[index], the brain can make some assumptions - 'array' is some sort of, well, array or something else indexable, and index is most probably some simple type. With (array index) one must pause and think is array a function? array? something else? Is index another some simple type? Or another function? Something else entirely? I know that at the end there's no distinction (lisp syntax is AST, and every other source code ends up as AST), and the idea that someone would accept syntax restrictions as a good thing is probably strange to the true lisper, but people care about the syntax. By eliminating syntax and forcing the programmer to write AST directly lisp gave enormous power to the user, but at the end not enough programmers were willing to give up on comfort to acquire all that power.