You misunderstand. The intermediate step in programming productivity has nothing to do with any particular language. I would have not done "Scala 3", but something else that implements "intermediate step up in programming productivity and correctness". Probably something a bit radical, but hey development is so stagnant when it comes to way we program, it would've been worth the risk.
Hint, the stuff that Chris Granger was trying to accomplish.
I find Scala is the thing that's actually advancing programming productivity - even when it comes specifically to IDEs/HCI/visual programming - whereas I expected Granger's effort to fail as it did. So I'm very glad Odersky's continuing to focus on Scala; if anything I was worried that his efforts on Dotty were detracting from maintenance and improvement of Scala proper.
Wait what? In the last post you were complaining it was too close to existing scala, now you're saying it's too big a step? Again, what is the change you're actually advocating?