I guess this sort of gets at the crux of the issue: Do you want it to be more like a scripting language (which would basically give you the mathematical equival

I guess this sort of gets at the crux of the issue: Do you want it to be more like a scripting language (which would basically give you the mathematical equivalent of "integer" including unlimited size) at the cost of speed, or do you want it to be closer to the implementation in the CPU, which entails dealing with 8/16/32/64 bit limits and sign bits? Why not have a way to do both? You can get an easy-to-use Int when speed is less of a concern, and can deal with Int16's, Int32's, UInt32's and whatnot when the job demands it.