I have been thinking about the reason why Lisps aren't more popular today. I'm not sure yours is the right reason though. It seems like the statement you make would be no more true today than in the 80s, when Lisp was much more popular.

Ultimately I think it might just be fads. Object oriented programming came along at the same time as the web, when the demand for programmers grew dramatically. That may have crystallized OO and imperative languages as the "default" style. Would be interesting to see the alternate universe where JavaScript actually was a Lisp.