JavaScript was inspired by Scheme and Self. It’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing in that way. But yes, a Scheme would have solved so many issues and churn that we have to deal with. However people are scared by Lisps so there’s that.
I think it's partly due to: people like regular garden-variety arrays and hashmaps, and don't want to use car, cdr, cons. I like my array and hashmap literals.
