> And on the topic of "too many parens", compared to Javascript, C/C++, Java and many other languages, you'll find about the same number of them.

Exactly. Even more, if you start counting {}, <> and []...

Also, before someone says "but prefix notation!", all mainstream languages are prefix too everywhere except math. That is,

  frob(barify(foo, bar))

is prefix notation, and equivalent Lisp is achieved by just shifting the opening paren to the left of the operator name (and dropping commas, thanks to the uniform syntax):

  (frob (barify foo bar))