But at the same time they stayed very close to C/C++/Java syntax styles. A lot of people complained about a number of the syntax that the designers didn't want to change.
The designers have also made it very clear that the types next to a variable are basically useless at runtime (unless you turn on strict mode, which kills performance). Types are for tooling only, which seems silly.
This is simply not true! I've been following the language for a long time and they have made a lot of changes, they have listened to feedback. Just search 'BREAKING CHANGE' on the mailing lists. During the first year there were tons of changes to the language and libraries. Now they trying to stabilize the APIs