Lots of good sense, but a few things make the code clunkier than scala needs to be IMO.

    try foo catch {...}

is readable and consistent; the idea that {} just makes a block is really useful, making try/catch, if/then and even method definitions a lot less "magic", a lot less cluttered by ceremony.

Infix method calls can likewise read much more clearly:

    string contains "foo"

Try is bad, but \/ makes a better alternative to throwing an exception for exactly the same reasons that Option is better than returning null.