> classic clueless developer mentality

Nice straw man argument. Pointing out that PHP is used for social/economic reasons is exactly saying that there are considerations outside technical merit.

At the same time, Facebook is a big Haskell user, but that is because of its technical merits. (Simon Marlow works for Facebook) On a back-end technology such as a compiler, the technical merits of the language are much more important than the social merits of finding enough low-skilled/low-paid developers.

Assuming you believe social reasons are important (rather than an unfortunate constraint on the world), then my strategy is still valid (if it works). It will make the technically superior languages socially superior as well.