I don't know about Drupal - I would tend to agree it's a little too cumbersome to the point where I would rather write something with a good framework like Django.
But WordPress is really nice, aside from PHP, and my once-off design-a-simple-website projects that use it would be a lot simpler if there were something similar that had a better language. PHP does add a significant amount of gymnastics that make plugin development more difficult.
I don't mind living with a heavy and immobile scaffolding for small projects - but using bubblegum, shoestring, and when necessary sauter to put what little additions I need on is a lot more annoying than just having a clean, standard set of screws and brackets. WordPress especially has a decent set of screws and brackets, but at the end of the day it is PHP and I see a lot of stuff that looks suspiciously like bubblegum.
As for Drupal, I'm not saying I have an incredible amount of experience in it, but taking it for granted that it's a useful framework, I imagine it would be more useful if written in Python or Ruby. Also, I don't buy the argument that PHP is easier to find - I think you would actually have to go out of your way these days to find a place that had PHP but not Python or Ruby available. Certainly all the cut-rate behemoths like HostGator support it.
The problem you see with these applications is that they are bad PHP, not that they are PHP.
If you would, go take a peek at the Symfony2 framework. It's positively brilliant code, and it's PHP--Fabian Potencier and friends are excellent programmers, and they write excellent code in PHP.
I'm currently in the process of building a migration path from our two different older PHP frameworks (MidCOM and Midgard MVC) to Symfony2, and I've really been impressed by the community.
They seem to be very receptive to new ideas, and passionate about code review. I've received lots of GitHub comments on my bundles even though the commenters probably would never actually use them.
And when I found an issue in Symfony2 itself that made integration with AppServer-in-PHP harder, Fabien fixed it within the hour of getting reported.
But WordPress is really nice, aside from PHP, and my once-off design-a-simple-website projects that use it would be a lot simpler if there were something similar that had a better language. PHP does add a significant amount of gymnastics that make plugin development more difficult.
I don't mind living with a heavy and immobile scaffolding for small projects - but using bubblegum, shoestring, and when necessary sauter to put what little additions I need on is a lot more annoying than just having a clean, standard set of screws and brackets. WordPress especially has a decent set of screws and brackets, but at the end of the day it is PHP and I see a lot of stuff that looks suspiciously like bubblegum.
As for Drupal, I'm not saying I have an incredible amount of experience in it, but taking it for granted that it's a useful framework, I imagine it would be more useful if written in Python or Ruby. Also, I don't buy the argument that PHP is easier to find - I think you would actually have to go out of your way these days to find a place that had PHP but not Python or Ruby available. Certainly all the cut-rate behemoths like HostGator support it.