I agree that the criticisms are not typical, but I don't agree that they're necessarily design flaws - just things that make Java less suitable for certain task

I agree that the criticisms are not typical, but I don't agree that they're necessarily design flaws - just things that make Java less suitable for certain tasks that require fine memory management or low-level bit twiddling. I write Java in some fairly high-performance scenarios and this is rarely a real problem (except maybe memory layout - having every object reference be a pointer does kill us occasionally, but again in specific circumstances). For the vast majority of applications it's a non-issue.