The syntax is ridiculously simple, and I can't in good conscience allow OCaml to be called clunky in a thread about a language that solved error handling with record-like interfaces and multiple return types.

Yeah I half think Haskell is a big reason it's not more popular. If Haskell didn't exist, maybe OCaml would be better recognized as a good all-purpose language that makes safe practices the default, rather than just a gateway drug for Haskell.