Yup. And the reason not to default to a list of then-forms and a list of else-forms is partly æsthetic, but partly dealing with the common case, because:

Yup. And the reason not to default to a list of then-forms and a list of else-forms is partly æsthetic, but partly dealing with the common case, because: (if (eq foo bar) (baz)) looks like a function call, not returning the value of baz (using your syntax). And of course Lisp is often written in a semi-functional way, so PROGN is, while not rare or really even avoided, not the usual way of doing things, usually.