Why do we use the list function, when all the arguments are literal string objects? That wants to be a quoted literal list like this:

  '("…/bin/ntpd"
    "-n" "-c" "/…/…-ntpd.conf"
    "-u" "ntpd" "-g")

Why isn't the configuration language mainly declarative, with executable Scheme only available other escape hatch to use as an exception rather than the rule?

I don't want to worry about list versus quote in a configuration language, because they shouldn't be evaluation going on, or not by default.