I wasn't around back then, but it must've been at least a bit crazy, considering Atwood threw an exception (heh) high enough to write a blog entry about it. What I think has happened is that with functional programming concepts sort of permeating mainstream, and with the advent of languages like Go and Rust (which I wouldn't exactly call low-level, for different reasons), treating errors as values is nothing unorthodox in principle. I'm not sure how real or prevalent this is really, just a guess.

I'm not trying to advocate going against the stream and not using exceptions in languages based around them, but I can see it being pulled off by a competent team, which I'm certain Joel could put together.