Re: 5., the Scala syntax isn't awkward to work with at all. In fact, it's based on CSS. For example:

<ul class="l:Users.userList"> <li class="user"> <span class="username">shadowfiend</span> <div class="profile"> <ul> <li class="name">Person Name</li> <li class="hometown">Hometown, ST</li> </ul> </div> </li>

</ul>

class Users { lazy val users = User.findAll() def userList = { ".user" #> users.map { user => ".username" #> user.username & ".name " #> user.name & ".hometown " #> (user.hometown + ", " + user.state) } } }