Not only that but Maya already supported custom code. I wrote a few plugins for Maya to export models and animations to our own optimised-for-N64 format. I wrote it in C (BK was all written in C). Maya also had (has?) a scripting language (called MEL I think?) that other teams used. It apparently made it super easy to do even advanced stuff. So given that, the “Lisp advantage” made even less sense. I must admit (again) that I felt really sorry for them. It is hard to watch somebody failing that badly doing a demo. But I will also say that making a sales call without first figuring out what they were up against (Maya) was a bad move. They had no clue what they were competing against. I think you are right that the “Lisp is awesome” thinking let them down the wrong path.