[mjburgess]

Rather than 'puzzles', I think the issue is that these are 'big idea languages'. (Eg., haskell = pure lazy). These ideas permeate all levels of program design, making programming often converting the naive interpretation of the problem into their Big Idea.

Phrased this way, it seems like they won't be puzzles in certain domain-specific areas; ie., when the naive problem suits their big idea.

So I'd say the 'puzzle issue' arises because big-idea langs are just not good for many problems.