With a decent macro system you can implement a type-checker (CL, Clojure and Racket do), as sophisticated as you want. But you can also write a type-level interpreter (of Lisp, if you want) which would evaluate programs during compilation (I can't find the post anymore, someone was describing their job interview gone... weird...). The difference between the two, more than with other such comparisons, comes down to aesthetics and cultures.
IOW, you can't infer the lack of ordering based on two items having an ex aequo position.
I guess you could say that jargon is just another form of syntax.
But I didn't say that, because I thought it was a bit of a digression to my point, which was already a digression on phkahler's point, and the digressing has to end somewhere...
To see why it's wrong, think about Lisp and Haskell. Users of both languages are sure that they're at the top of the power curve, they're sure that they're looking down when they look at the other language, and they're sure why they're looking down. "How can you get anything done in [Haskell|Lisp]? It doesn't even have [macros|a decent type system]!" But if both are sure they're looking down, then languages can't be well-ordered by "power".
Next, that syntax. I suspect that that kind of syntax "clicks" with some people, and not with others. (Almost everyone could learn it, but that's not the same thing.) And I think you're right that "the masses" - the vast majority of people - are people to whom it doesn't "click". This may be the real flaw of Lisp (and Haskell) - the syntax is just wrong for the large majority of programmers.
Note well: This is my pet theory. I have no data. All predictions guaranteed wrong or your money back.