The only decisions that matter for languages that get adopted are the decisions that cause adoption.

JS went without static types, Go went without generics, PHP was just a tool for reducing html boilerplate. New languages love to stick null right in there. Rust isn't what Graydon Hoare wanted it to be. Chris Lattner called Swift a failure.

It's all up for criticism.

Sure, there are valid criticisms of anything but without understanding they're unlikely to be useful or correct.