[skrishnamurthi]

Author here. Yes, very close. #4 is not a bit strong: there is value to doing this even if you don't have macros, for instance, because of other benefits (e.g., decent support from editors). But of course it also makes macros relatively easy and very powerful.

[galaxyLogic]

And what about homoiconity in Lisp vs. other lanaguages? In Lisp it means that programs are "lists" and so is "data". Programs in lisp are more than strings, like in most other languages, they are "nested lists". Lisps let us write prograssm as lists, adn store data as lists. JavaScript only allows us to write programs as (structureless) strings.

Of course that is well-known but I think it is a big deal, that you have such homo-iconicity in Lisp but no in most other languages. Prolog maybe?