The problem each of them tried to solve, and continue to try to solve is purely lexical in the end. It's about writing things differently. Creating abstractions (terms) beyond what the underlying language/platform allows you to do.
And this is not a bad thing. The solution really is to create your own language so you can express the problem you are solving in the terms of the problem and not the underlying language/platform/hardware.
And then I sigh again... aah but if only Common Lisp and it's macros were the underlying platform.