I find scalaz quite readable, though admittedly I'm using Scala as an overcomplicated Haskell on the JVM rather than a superior Java. So my use pattern is mainly "which scalaz feature copies the haskell feature I want?" rather than "how can I use this lib to help me?" Haven't used lift or dispatch, so I'll take your word for it.

As for a small community, it hasn't bothered me. I get to cheat and use all the java libs.

Regarding compiler speed, I get the impression it's much worse on a mac than on linux (I use the latter, my colleagues use the former). On linux I've had little problem. I also tend to use `~ compile` in SBT. This will re-compile any time a file is modified, and notify you when an error occurs, so typically my code has already compiled by the time I actually want to run it. That's a really nice feature I wish I had in Haskell.