These articles are necessary to counteract armchair critics who are afraid of unfamiliar things and feel insecure. This crowd is loud: you can hear the choir of "but no one is using it, I tried it once and there were parentheses, I tried it and it was too hard, I hate the JVM" — there needs to be a voice that says it works (and works well!) for some people.

FWIW, it works for me — I would not have been able to build and run my business without Clojure. The long-term stability is an especially important trait, under-appreciated by people who do not have a business to run.