Sure, you can totally do compile-time metaprogramming without language support, but the barrier to entry is much higher. That means that, at the margin, you're

Sure, you can totally do compile-time metaprogramming without language support, but the barrier to entry is much higher. That means that, at the margin, you're less likely to try it, especially for small projects. And most projects start small. I totally agree that good development shops do lots of compile-time metaprogramming. The issue is whether they do enough when dealing with problems (that start out as) too small to justify writing a full blown parser/compiler, and if they don't, how much of the shortage is attributable to a lack of language support in C++/Java.