[gruseom]

I like CL, though if there were a book called Common Lisp: The Good Parts a la Crockford, it would probably describe the subset I like to code in (at least as long as I got to add LOOP.) In other words, CL is huge and there are large parts of it you need never use. I guess the intricacies you mention are annoying, but somehow those things never bothered me (e.g. I'm fine with CAR and CDR; they're short and symmetrical). I'd say Scheme is better for exploring ideas and CL is better for getting things done, so it depends on what you want. PCL targets CL, of course, so if you like the book and have gotten over the painful Emacs setup hurdle you may as well stick with it.

newLISP isn't based on CL or Scheme, it's its own weird thing that is regarded as leprotic by the rest of the Lisp community.