While I will not try to debate your experience, I will provide some extra context for my previous assertion:
You cannot program in CL without using the CLOS. Most CL books go into great detail explaining it and the MOP, they are also full of looping constructs, even using GOTO. The only exceptions are Graham's books.
In open source, it is frowned upon to use recursion as TCO is not part of the standard. Some functions are even inlined for better performance.
You can program perfectly fine in CL without using CLOS.
TCO is not part of the standard, but most implementations have it. All the widely used implementations have it. People use it and it is certainly not frowned upon.
You cannot program in CL without using the CLOS. Most CL books go into great detail explaining it and the MOP, they are also full of looping constructs, even using GOTO. The only exceptions are Graham's books.
In open source, it is frowned upon to use recursion as TCO is not part of the standard. Some functions are even inlined for better performance.