Sure, if your code is only going to be touched by LISP experts, and/or has a sufficiently strong separation from that being touched by the novices/intermediates

Sure, if your code is only going to be touched by LISP experts, and/or has a sufficiently strong separation from that being touched by the novices/intermediates (i.e., like a library), macro away. There's a reason I qualified it with "generally" and "rarely".