I hope that the macro system he's working on bares some fruit. Personally, I've always liked explicit-renaming macros, as they provide you the benefits of both hygiene and (almost) the convenience of defmacro. But, the pattern language of syntax-rules makes it much easier to maintain macros, as you can actually see what it is you're matching without first interpreting the series of list operations... Hopefully the two will be married in some glorious way!