Maybe these
programming in the large languages don't necessarily have to be fantastic for programming in the large, and in the long term. But they have to be great for this at least in the short term. So imagine that such a language shows itself to be good for making medium-scale applications in the first year (assuming that large-scale applications take longer to become "large-scale"). The code is uniform, people can easily get up to speed with whatever section they are working on, there are no
big surprises - great. This language gets adopted in more projects because of the initial rite of passage, and some luck and marketing (hype and random factors seems to be given for new technology, in the short term). So more projects spring up following the same model. These also work great, and by now we have a handful of new, discovered concepts associated with learning and using the language. The language, ecosystem and implementations are still lean and easy to comprehend. And so some years pass.
Now this language is actually used for large applications. It's still all gravy, the code bases are still uniform and easy to understand. People can easily be trained. More projects adopt this language, or even use it to build things from scratch. It gets applied to more domains. Years pass, and things that were unobservable in the beginning start to rear its head. They weren't non-existing, but they were so minuscule in this large landscape (remember - big adoption of this language) that it was unobservable from the bigger picture. Now what was a problem for a few developers seems to be a problem for many people. For a while, they solve this pain point by educating about certain patterns to look out for and solve. This works for a while, but after a while more pain points become apparent. And like for the initial pain point, it is just not a pain point for a small group of ignorable developers, but indeed a systemic one. There seems to be something wrong. We can't simply solve this pain point with education and applying patterns - we need abstractions. There is some murmur about this - the principal point about this language was to avoid over-abstracting things. We need to practice constraint. This works for a while, but after some time the concerned voices of the people advocating this kind of restraint gets drowned out. These limitations are just too much for people to deal with. So people start suggesting and inventing so-called abstractions. And pain points are relieved. After a while you have a whole cottage industry of these abstractions. And people's day to day life with this language and its associated code bases are happier and more productive. On the other hand, there is more to learn now, and things aren't straightforward any more. You can't simply look up a library and have flat, easy to read code. You also need to learn the associated abstractions. You also notice that the technologies associated with these abstractions are getting kind of big. They are starting to take on a life of their own. And it seems like they don't really fit. Some of them feel kind of shoe-horned in, as if there was no general slot for them already installed, it just had to be jammed in there.
Now, is this language good for large-scale development? The language is still easy to learn. Somehow. There was a bunch of additions up through the years to ease some pain points. Not all of jive as well with each other, or with the original language. But with some elbow grease, it is perfectly serviceable. Not to mention all the associated technology that cropped up to assist the language in its ascent - that is the hard part. So the language is not really easy to learn any more, with the associated things. But people know it, there are code bases to maintain and it has proven that it isn't useless.
Is the language good for large-scale development? Doesn't matter. It already won and is here to stay.