We use Haskell, OCaml and (now) F# so for us it has nothing to do with lack of C-like syntax. Rather we skip Erlang because:
- It's dynamically typed (we're fans of Haskell's type system)
- Doesn't provide a 'real' string type (I understand why, but it's annoying that this hasn't been corrected at the language level yet)
- Tends to have poor (incomplete or unmaintained) database drivers
- It isn't batteries included and doesn't appear to have a community working on correcting this. If it does, it isn't highly visible. Haskell at least has Hackage, and I'd guess that's what has us choosing that language over any other. In Windows environments F# is about to have the ultimate advantage here.
There are probably other reasons I can't think of right now, but these are the major points.
