Correction: It's not that you "don't have to use the REPL"; you simply cannot even have it in that case. REPL-driven development is quite a powerful technique, and no, "many other languages too" don't have it. For it to be "a true REPL," it must be in the context of a homoiconic language, which Clojure is.
Sure, static typing is great, but perhaps you have no idea what it actually feels like - spinning up a Clojurescript REPL and being able to interactively "click" and "browse" through the web app programmatically, controlling its entire lifecycle directly from your editor. Similarly, you can do the same thing with remote service running in a kubernetes pod. It's literally like playing a video game while coding. It's immensely fun and unbelievably productive.
Sure, static typing is great, but perhaps you have no idea what it actually feels like - spinning up a Clojurescript REPL and being able to interactively "click" and "browse" through the web app programmatically, controlling its entire lifecycle directly from your editor. Similarly, you can do the same thing with remote service running in a kubernetes pod. It's literally like playing a video game while coding. It's immensely fun and unbelievably productive.