"If macros are really going to give programmers the power to make the language syntax their own, then language-imposed irregularity is at cross purposes with that open-endedness. I think the parentheses help programmers realize that they should look only at the variable names to determine meaningful differences between things."
That's the beauty of Nulan's syntax system: it is almost completely customizable, feels very "Lispish", and plays very well with macros. You can now have your short syntax and the benefits of "code is data is code".
Even wart's system works pretty damn well, despite being much less powerful, because it has very simple rules for how to handle things.
I think the key to making syntax play well with Lisp is to make sure the syntax has a certain amount of simplicity and consistency, and is customizable. Basically, the syntax needs to follow the list structure. Beyond that, you can make it as crazy as you want.
