One of the features that I dislike the most abiout Julia is how list comprehensions have been directlly ported from Python. This was a conscious choice they made out of pragmatism, not because of the merits of the design.

I don't doubt that what you say it's true, but to me, it comes down more to lack of familiarity with other languages than any actual merits of Python syntax and semantics. Frankly, I am glad the didn't take more from Python.