You are placing a lot of merit on Java. Most of it should be directed to the JVM.
There's nothing inherently great about Java, other than the fact that it constrains programmers so much, that the damage a bad programmer can inflict is greatly reduced. At the same time, so is productivity. This can be mitigated up to a point by having more bodies, which is a thing that bigcorp can afford but startups cannot.
Replace Java with anything else running on the JVM and you'll reap most of the benefits (libraries, application servers, deployment, etc), without many of the constraints.
There's nothing inherently great about Java, other than the fact that it constrains programmers so much, that the damage a bad programmer can inflict is greatly reduced. At the same time, so is productivity. This can be mitigated up to a point by having more bodies, which is a thing that bigcorp can afford but startups cannot.
Replace Java with anything else running on the JVM and you'll reap most of the benefits (libraries, application servers, deployment, etc), without many of the constraints.