Comment by kmacdough

It's not the ugly design choices that make it popular. It's just that it was the first that did a decent job of being easy to read/write. Even if you write an objectively better language, you can't replace the ecosystem of libraries, education material and human support that comes with popularity. Popularity begets popularity, and since ease of use is the selling point, it's probably never going to practical to replace it as a general purpose go-to for beginners. And where people begin, they tend to stay. So instead we slowpy march on, bearing the burdens of original sin.