Reliance on the Java ecosystem has been the biggest issue for me in trying to use Clojure. I love many things about the language, but I have zero experience with Java or the JVM. A number of my attempts at using Clojure for a project have been hindered by my lack of understanding of the underlying runtime and the tools. In a way, it almost feels like Clojure simply isn't for me.
On the other hand, I've had much more luck with ClojureScript, which I'll happily use over JS any day, though the build system still occasionally mystifies me.
We're growing a scripting ecosystem in Clojure now thanks to this, it's still relatively new
As a newcomer, I've made several native binaries for different operation systems
End users can certainly run Clojure programs natively without having the JVM installed on their machine
It's not clojure, but it's clojure-ish enough that it can be pleasantly productive for little scripting tasks and smaller problems.
Once I was set up I quickly became effective, though I do tend to stay within the bounds of Cljs and avoid the host where I can.
Then eventually set up their REPLs, I know Cursive is working on this though and the nice thing there is you always have access to the "standard library" provided by the Google Closure compiler all of JS and then all of CLJS and all of npm and all of CLJS's libraries
Also, surely your 25 years of experience have nothing to do with you being more productive now than 25 years ago.
Same host environment, many of the same libraries, same developer. Different language, different mindset.
I switched to Clojure a decade ago, around the time I started working with distributed systems. The best move I have ever made. I love working with Clojure and I find a large benefit in my understanding of the JVM.
Recently I've built a front end (Clojurescript) and some lambda services (Clojurescript on Node) to complement my startup (Clojure, https://operatr.io - its a tool for Kafka). There's an advantage to using a single language/mindset through your entire stack.
I spoke at the last Conj (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnvtPzEH-d8) about my experience, broadly speaking my top reason for loving Clojure is that I am much more effective in delivery today than I was a decade ago. I simply don't believe I could have built Operatr in Java/Javascript, YMMV.
In technical terms Clojure's data-orientation coupled with host-interop is much more important to me than it being a functional language or emacs/vim etc. Turns out I still use Intellij (with the Cursive plugin) and my work setup has changed very little.
It's a great tool, if you haven't tried it you should have a play - particularly if you work with Java.