Early adopters shouldn't throw stones... :) But in fact I quite like the new Dict syntax, which seems to be more explicit and readable. Curly braces seem to be gainfully employed elsewhere doing type stuff. And experts can make short cuts, either in Julia or in their editors...
I confess I'm a bit puzzled by having to change `[1:10]` to `[1:10...]`, but then again, `collect(1:10)` is more explicit and readable. So I think it's progress. I suppose, as a former user of The Programming Language Formerly Known as Mathematica", I might be more grateful than others for a less punctuation-heavy language syntax. Mathematica Wizards can fluently read and write code like this: lcm = Fold[#/#2/._~_~x_|_:>#x&,1,{##}]& but I'm happy with a more readable approach.