[hadley]

I really don't get where this too many data types canard comes from - all you need to know is vector, matrix, array (1d, 2d, and nd homogeneous data types) and list and data frame (1d and 2d heterogeneous data types). On the other hand, the OO systems are somewhat bewildering.

I disagree that no one will have the chutzpah to fix R - I know of at least three groups including one driven by an extremely serious computer scientist, who are either working on rewrites of the internals or complete new implementations of the language. Even though R has been around longer than languages like Python and Ruby, it hasn't excited the interest of so many CS people, so it's at an early stage of it's evolution - it's only now at a point where serious alternative implementations of the core engine are starting to come out.

Personally, I've been working on making many of the core library more cleaner and more consistent. I'm completely biased, but I think if you use my packages (ggplot2 for graphics, plyr for apply functions, stringr for strings, lubridate for dates, ...) you'll have many fewer problems. And if you do find inconsistencies, I'm committed to fixing them.