I think that "insecurity about their current environment" is spot on. Or at least this has been my experience. Lisp is hailed as something close to perfection gurus (like Paul Graham, etc) use. Before I discovered Python I was drawn back to Lisp once a year on average, only to find out again that it's not quite there for real-life use. Luckily, with Python I defeated the insecurity in my tools and could happily move on.
