I'm not OP, but there are a few I could see some mentioned in the OP's post in passing. * The common lisp condition system [3, 0] is a way better way to do err

I'm not OP, but there are a few I could see some mentioned in the OP's post in passing. * The common lisp condition system [3, 0] is a way better way to do errors. * Tune-able compilers [1] allow you to make better trade offs than even gcc allows for c, let alone Clojure's very opaque compiler. * CLOS [2] is a very powerful object system which clojure does not replicate (they have multi methods, and java classes, but not a meta class system; think python's meta class features but better (because of macros and compiler access) and with multi methods designed in). * Nice native interoperability (Clojure generally being on the JVM, and common lisp capable of direct calls and memory manipulation). That being said. Clojure's unparalleled concurrency features are amazing. I would compare them as: if Clojure is the Java of lisps, then Common Lisp is the C++ of lisps. [0] http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/beyond-exception-handling-conditions-and-restarts.html http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/beyond-exception-handling-co... [1] http://franz.com/support/documentation/current/doc/compiling.htm#decl-opts-1 http://franz.com/support/documentation/current/doc/compiling... [2] http://www.laputan.org/pub/papers/MOP.pdf http://www.laputan.org/pub/papers/MOP.pdf [3] http://axisofeval.blogspot.com/2011/04/whats-condition-system-and-why-do-you.html http://axisofeval.blogspot.com/2011/04/whats-condition-syste...