It's a complex language, just not a powerful one. If you want a language that actually simplifies on Scala, try Ceylon.

Kotlin has plenty of killer features, two of them is a very good OOB IDE support even in Community Edition of IDEA and machine translation of Java code to Kotlin.

The IntelliJ Scala plugin is pretty awesome too and it also offers machine translation of Java code to Scala. It's actually the most widely downloaded plugin for IntelliJ by nearly an order of magnitude. I think Kotlin is a much better option than Java, but the main selling point is simplicity for those who don't want to spend the time learning Scala (entirely valid if if that's a priority for you).

Or Xtend if you want a simpler Java with less verbosity

Turbo Pascal has much faster compile times than Kotlin. Compile time just isn't that big a deal as a feature.

It's not a feature, until it becomes a problem. It is a problem in Scala.

I use Scala every day. IntelliJ uses incremental compilation, so most compiles complete quicker than it takes for me to reach for the mug of coffee next to my keyboard.