For me its a benefit, why would you want your language/core api changing all the time? Thats how you end up with certain unnamed languages that have fallen out of favor. Java the language tries very hard to not be redundant in its feature set, so the path to usage is clear.

I think Java suffers from too many search results (yes thats a thing). I suppose if you want to learn Java today you simply google it, and find tons of people trying to solve the N+1 hibernate problem on stackoverflow, or some other common annoying enterprisey issue, and so you start reading up on JCPs and EE apis. If that is your introduction, I can understand why people end up going "what is this shit?". The reality of course is that there are many subcultures within the Java community and that many of them are anti cruft api as well which is how innovation comes to the Java world.