What sort of deficiencies? I think all in all java (the original spec) was a pretty well thought out design.

It's not like several other languages that have to go and add unicode support on later as an afterthought.

  new Thread()
  {
    public void run()
    {
       System.out.println("I'm in a Thread");
    }
  }.start();

In C#:

  new Thread (Go).start();

  static void Go() 
  {
    Console.Writeln("I'm in a Thread");
  }

...C# isn't especially elegant either, but the general uncleanliness of inner anonymous classes is one example of Java's problems.

The C# version would actually be:

  new Thread(() => Console.WriteLine("I'm in a Thread")).Start();

Silly example though, as threads are silly.

Is it really silly? Almost all the code I write day to day is either multi-threaded or event-driven, so the above difference means a very real improvement in my quality of life. The code is simpler, more compact, and easier to understand at a glance months later.

This isn't the only difference, either. C# is never going to be as terse as a scripting language, but with each release they are examining common workflows and streamlining them. Java may be adding in a lot of new features, but the syntactic integration seems awkward at best.

The little things count for a lot.