Newbie starts with C++, moves on to Haskell after a very brief dabbling in some dynamic languages, and comes out thinking expressive static type systems are great. No great surprise, no real insight.

The purpose of programming languages is to bridge the gap between ideas and execution. The purpose of a type system is to prove something about the code; astute readers will notice that this is an orthogonal concern. Static types may be helpful; they may impede progress. It mostly depends on the application.