I see people complain at times about it's performance but there is always someone there to rebut that it's fast at some things but not others.

This quote has always struck me as an intellectually lazy cop out to avoid engaging with criticism. It's an indirect appeal to the fallacy of false equivalence: "If people actually used language $Foo, surely they would complain about it just as much, because all programming languages are basically the same."

> Either way, people are out there using it, making systems from it, and generally getting on with it.

See, this argument could be used to dismiss any criticism of just about anything.

Different tools for different jobs. If you wander too far from the main domain of the language, you'll find quirks and it's maybe better to use something else.