You're absolutely right.

While I do strongly believe that optional typing is a feature I want to keep, I have been focusing too hard on taking a middle-of-the-road approach.

The original idea was to have a systems development language that had the same "feel" as a high level scripting language. I didn't do a lot of planning on what that meant from the technical side.

I appreciate the advice. I'll spend some time getting the answer to what Orange actually is.