I don't think he claimed (a) or (b). Instead, he claimed that Haskell has all of these features together and that the culminating result is a pleasant implement

I don't think he claimed (a) or (b). Instead, he claimed that Haskell has all of these features together and that the culminating result is a pleasant implementation of a real-world problem. Finally, the last point does not contradict the first. You can have lightweight syntax and use it to express heavyweight ideas. Then you can have libraries which help to alleviate that weight. This is a non-trivial task—it involves the abstraction power of your language and, in the case, the logical power of your type language.