This is why I tend to think 'catch' blocks would ideally run in the dynamic scope of the 'throw' such that you can decide whether or not to gather a stack trace

This is why I tend to think 'catch' blocks would ideally run in the dynamic scope of the 'throw' such that you can decide whether or not to gather a stack trace at the point of catch rather than the point of throw. Common Lisp conditions are the only thing I've used that provides that. (well, perl's $SIG{__DIE__} + local to dynamically scope the override will somewhat let you do that, but it's a bit deep magic and something developers normally only ever interact with through a library rather than a basic feature)