Yeah, "write once, test everywhere" is reality. I've been a cynic long enough that I'm not really as outraged by Java as I tried to pretend. That sort of excrement occurs reliably and it's not worth getting lathered up over.

The things you (and I) like and don't like about languages can be plotted chronologically--computer languages are generally getting better. "Better" seems to be a matter of ever-more structure; the change from C++ (which, as you say, allows mixing of non-OOP paradigms) to Java (all OOP all the time) is a nice example. There's no sign of backsliding, either, as the trend seems to have one direction only. The .Net family is even more structured than Java.

The advent of OOP was the last major paradigm shift, and sometimes I wonder what might come next. Linear, function/subroutine, OOP...next? We're overdue for another major disruption in the programming memespace. Or maybe we're still digesting OOP. I know I find OOP profoundly powerful. It lets me effectively anthropomorphize the code--I can think in terms of building things with behaviors, stimulus-response entities, in large "populations" of these entities that produce sometimes unexpected emergent phenomenon (which is sometimes a good thing).

Sounds like you've worked on some interesting projects. Undoubtedly there are things about the current gig you can't discuss, and I"m sure that's frustrating. We all like to talk shop. I'm assuming (as it's government work) that you work in a big shop with lots of colleagues to shoot the breeze with--oh to be a fly on the wall!*

(*--Not that I'm at all inclined to want to take up residence in Gitmo--that was not a hint!)