Minimizing the number axioms is good. Minimize the number of convenience macros is a different proposition. Most conditionals and closures don't need anaphora, so when I see the plain if or fn I know not there's nothing funny going on. The anaphoric versions tell me I need to look for the it/self references before I'll understand what I'm reading.
Other things we shouldn't do include eliminating let in favour of the more general with, and then eliminating with in favour of the more general withs.
Of course, (withs (a (foo) b (bar a) c (baz b)) ... ) is really just:
