I do not support the unbridled growth of features in a programming language designed to be small and elegant, regardless of whether or not there are good reasons. The language designer intended the language to be small and elegant; it should be respected and honoured.

Small and elegant is good. It minimizes the cognitive load on the software developer. It makes for easier programming. It encourages productivity (high development velocity).

That's why I like and prefer Smalltalk. Over the decades, the language has not grown in size but its supporting tools and class libraries have greatly improved. That's the way it should be.

Smalltalk proves that the language doesn't need to grow in complexity in order to accommodate changing times and changing technology. Simplicity is a quality that we should embrace.

If you make a language large and complex, it is not practical to use a language subset. That's because you may need to work on existing codebases that utilize features beyond your subset. Eventually, you will have to face the language in all its size and complexity.