For that matter, most languages prefer db's because of the fact that file storage operations don't have, umm, structure.
In fact the canonical Arc web app, news.arc, has a list structure to store in the "flat" file. Thus for simple apps where entities only have a few not very complex fields, textual representations of lists seem to be enough.
In other languages however their "array" syntax (which is approximately what lists are in Arc) is usually not readable by a built-in function a la lisp 'read. Also, their array syntax is usually not the center of attention, unlike in Lisp where the code syntax is itself the "array" syntax.
