> Programming in the large often means those systems are long-living and the teams programming and maintaining them are huge, heterogeneous (in skill), and changing (esp. if it's a system running for decades). The verbosity comes from making many things pretty explicit and clear.

I would say that this is the rule, rather than the exception, in software, and the fact that languages designed for "explorative hacking or intellectual workouts" eventually make it into production is simply a matter of inexperienced, though bright, developers prioritizing initial development cost over maintenance cost (which makes sense in startups, but those are a tiny minority of the industry). The average production codebase lifespan is about a decade, probably more.

I also agree that verbosity (up to a reasonable point) assists in maintaining codebases over time.