I like that theory, if I was going to counter it though, I'd say that I'm not sure those features match what language users talk about. For instance:

- C: Users often praise the simplicity of the language

- C++: Users often praise (not always praise?) the large feature set for a low level language

- Python: Folks talk a lot about "batteries included". Although in all honesty, I think having good interaction with other low-level languages is Python's secret feature.

- Java: Really leans in hard to object oriented programming

- JavaScript: Haha, you have to use it!

Not sure I'm really disagreeing with you though, but I think Java promoted its portability much more than it's ever been used (obviously there are cases like Spark which uses the JVM portability).