I think the reason why Clojure (alongside with F#) is the most paid language (according to StackOverflow and State of JS surveys) because more and more FinTech companies are discovering that the language is exceptionally well suited for manipulating financial data (and not just that). Another reason is: like the one you've mentioned: Clojure mainly attracts more experienced, "grumpy" developers, those who have seen things and tried different ways and become almost apathetic and burned out from (over and over again) building and maintaining projects that despite all the efforts almost always spiral into big, unmaintainable clusterfucks.