[AnimalMuppet]

Re 1: Who said? Those who wrote the stuff being read, of course. (You're muttering "self referential" like that's some kind of a problem... /s)

Re 2 and 3: I think this is the big one. Functional language are great in some situations. Non-functional languages are great in some other situations. The problem is, someone who doesn't know functional languages gets into a situation where they're good, finds out about functional languages, starts using them, and a large number of their problems go away. They experience functional languages being wonderful. But they conclude "functional languages are wonderful" rather than "functional languages are wonderful in that situation", and they proceed to try to sell the world on how wonderful functional languages are. (Not just functional - ditto for other language styles and development techniques.)

The trick is, given the problem, to pick the right languages, tools, and techniques, rather than to have One Right Answer.

Re 9: I'd say, given Pike's background, that he almost certainly knew at least the older PL research. Ditto Kernighan (who didn't design the language, but did write the book).