The part I was disagreeing with is that Scala gives programmers more "rope to hang themselves with". You may be correct that restricting what programmers could do was a goal of Java, but writing Java in practice gives a tremendous number of opportunities to hang oneself. Apologies for not being more clear.
Further, it's not like this complexity is something that arose independently of Java itself. One of the most frequently cited examples of super-complicated insanity in the Java world is J2EE, which is a standard and set of libraries created by Sun itself. If the creators of language have managed to create and propagate one of the biggest tarpits available in Java, that reflects poorly on the overall Java ecosystem.
Further, it's not like this complexity is something that arose independently of Java itself. One of the most frequently cited examples of super-complicated insanity in the Java world is J2EE, which is a standard and set of libraries created by Sun itself. If the creators of language have managed to create and propagate one of the biggest tarpits available in Java, that reflects poorly on the overall Java ecosystem.