[dextorious]

Cargo cult is actually your argument, i.e thinking you need the parenthesis and the semicolons, just because Java always had them...

[hackinthebochs]

The point is removing them accomplishes little and adds ambiguity. There's something to be said about not changing things that adds no value; momentum and familiarity are valuable features, even if technically they're not needed.

This trend of trying to strip programming languages down to their "essence" is a fools errand and the pendulum will swing back eventually (not fast enough in my opinion).