Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like Play framework as an statically typed alternative, doesn't have most of the things we like less about Java, feels like RoR / Django, but is still statically typed (and supports Scala which I think is much more fun than Java once you get passed the "Scala is complicated" myth)
Scala may be "more fun", but, personally, I still have reservations about it being used in-the-large and I think calling the observation that Scala is, yes, complicated a "myth" is unnecessarily dismissive. You may not find it as such, but the language's kitchen-sink approach to features does have its drawbacks; I find that part of it manageable but that doesn't mean it's not complicated, it means I can deal with it.…
I don't think its dismissive, The truth is Scala is _not_ complicated. People can do complicated things with it, but in general the language poses no real barrier to entry. Now the second point you bring up is more of an issue that I run into at times as well. Where I find a solution to a problem that presents itsself as the "Scala" way of doing something, and After i close my browser and go home for the day I forget about why I did that and show up the next day staring at magical Glyphs on the page that appear to work ( ohh i needed :>> not >:> ). To solve that problem you need to stop doing things you don't understand and instead take the long way around and write out function names instead of using the shorthand operators that your provided with. Once you get used to a library you will commit the operators to memory and you will know that :: is cons and ::: is list append and you won't have the "what did I do here" problem nearly as much