There are plenty of languages with macros though, nothing special about lisps.

And no, language semantics absolutely don't compose. Like you can't just do some kind of optimization in one place if you do some mutation on it in another place. Optimizations work on global assumptions that every part of the codebase have to abide by. Any part not doing it will make the whole thing crumble - and "there is no stuck in lisp" is exactly why you can't have your cake and eat it too.