I think some things are fashions and some are lessons learned. For example, English-like syntax is out. Cobol has it because it was invented for its predecesso

I think some things are fashions and some are lessons learned. For example, English-like syntax is out. Cobol has it because it was invented for its predecessor and Cobol's still around, SQL has it because its designers copied Cobol before we'd learned better, and that's it. We still use words in our syntax but explicit block structure with punctuation is now known to be easier to read. Speaking of block structure: Line numbers are gone. Unrestricted use of goto (as in, using goto to go from anywhere in the program to anywhere else in the program) is also gone. These things aren't fashion: We've learned better. We're more likely to invent a different kind of structure than to go back to that. Similarly, languages with absolutely no type system are also out: You can have the types on variables, like Haskell, or values, like Python, but choosing to have neither, like BLISS and BCPL, is no longer an option unless you're actually writing in assembly language. Other things, like column-oriented formatting, are gone because technology moved on. Even Cobol abandoned that one.