I think most of the programming advantages from static typing come from the basics (when done well), rather than the high-end research project type system stuff

I think most of the programming advantages from static typing come from the basics (when done well), rather than the high-end research project type system stuff. A language with inferred (H-M-ish) static types and a good module system will give you reality checks from the compiler, you won't have to write frigging null checks everywhere, and it will avoid the visual clutter and rewriting tedious annotations as code changes. It's probably not as exciting as research, though. The whole static / dynamic typing thing is its own flamewar waiting to happen, so I'm going to leave it at that.