It's "cool" and the ecosystem rules, and it's fast enough, I just never really found that I liked writing Racket or using Dr. Racket the same way I like writing Python so I never really reached for it when I was trying to do something. Indeed, from the first time I looked at Python I liked it. That was not the case with Javascript or Java or C or PHP? I don't know, I like Python and really want a practical Lisp that I can really sink my teeth into? So by all accounts I should love Racket. And yet, I don't.
That said, Rhombus looks really nice at first glance. This might be worth a sustained excursion to build something a bit more fun... I'm kind of excited about this!
The way I use racket its main competitor is python. It's for when I want to accomplish something with heavy third party deps, and I have zero interest in writing the actual cool code I just need to make some libraries kiss and then use my tool. Not saying that's the case here but maybe racket just doesn't offer you much that python doesn't?
Sounds like you'd get more from just using one of the other lisps you liked, especially if there's a more specialized one that wouldn't be competing with a language you probably would prefer to use anyway. Like eg I have to deal with a lot of lua so I get my lisp rocks off with fennel.
One of the things I've really wanted to get into is writing some DSLs and Racket and Rhombus are supposed to be the tools you're supposed to reach for for that?
I don't know, the god's honest truth is that I don't write nearly as much code as I did 8 months ago lol, so maybe just diving into Racket and Rhombus for personal stuff would be fun and it doesn't have to something for work...
Really, the lisps I've really liked are Guile Scheme (ok not a lisp really but lispy enough and I liked it) and Clojure? But though I liked them I never had enough work in them to get really good. I do like Lispy languages in general though (since Emacs Lisp, which is glorious in it's own way), I just need the excuse to start playing with them more because they're fun.
You know what I've been really intrigued with over the years has been uLisp (which should be pronounced Micro Lisp) for microcontrollers (http://www.ulisp.com/), but a really cool project would be a DSL that spits out C for the STM32 boards I play with periodically for embedded stuff? I don't know, maybe after I get the cabin done... that'd be a really fun adventure and writing a DSL for that would make my life immensely easier...