> However, a few dozen nodes can handle the workload for probably 90% of companies. Being in small startups if I can effectively get binary RPC, distributed namespacing, etc, for free it saves a lot of trouble and effort.

I think this key. There are issues, and there are parts of the platform that are crap, but Erlang (via Elixir as well in my case, I'm not sure if feel the same way if it was purely Erlang) is on balance the most useful and usable tool I've ever used for building networked services