Perpetual intermediates exist in every field, many of them with far more nuance than any mere programming language has to offer. The way to extract productivity from these people is the same in software development as it is in any endeavor: leadership.

Good leaders identify and propagate conventions that can keep their teams functioning in a complex millieu.

You can't get rid of the irreducible complexity of any system. You can only move it around.

In my experience, if you use an expressive language well, you can fit the code to the problem domain in a way that better communicates the underlying approach you have taken to solving the problem.

Relying on strict, small languages, like Java, means that you gain a consistency of syntax by sacrificing flexibility.

I've seen monstrous turds written in many languages, the problem in all these cases was poor or absent leadership.