Reading the motivation about the "high cost of adding a new feature" to a programming language puts me in mind of the first line of the Scheme language standard

Reading the motivation about the "high cost of adding a new feature" to a programming language puts me in mind of the first line of the Scheme language standard: "Programming languages should be designed not by piling feature on top of feature, but by removing the weaknesses and restrictions that make additional features appear necessary." Interestingly, to a large extent, it is macros that makes that approach possible.