It also seemed like the original intent was to support generics and metaprogramming through code generation and AST manipulation, the argument being that code g

It also seemed like the original intent was to support generics and metaprogramming through code generation and AST manipulation, the argument being that code generation and AST manipulation are the most general way to build complexity and specialization from a simple set of primitives. I personally don't think that generics and generation are mutually exclusive, but if they were, I'd side with retaining simplicity over the new feature.