The article never mentions Haskell, or any similar language. It compares Cobol and Python, and it compares Perl 4 and Perl 5. It never compares two languages where people on both sides think they're on the more powerful side.
> What's wrong is the idea that languages can be placed on a one-dimensional axis labeled "power". That idea is mistaken.
It's also not in the essay. It says: "Note to nerds: or possibly a lattice, narrowing toward the top; it's not the shape that matters here but the idea that there is at least a partial order."
> The essay says that Lisp is at the top of the power curve.
True, but he carefully prefixes it with "Where they fall relative to one another is a sensitive topic." Along with the lattice comment, he leaves plenty of room for other languages to also be "at the top".
> High performance computing (or, as the article says, games)? I might need something that gives me control of memory layout.
This is addressed in the essay, too: "When you're writing desktop software, there's a strong bias toward writing applications in the same language as the operating system."