I'm not sure I understand why one would expect that any language that is meant to be created in physical space should aim for the most minimal syntax.
Regular folks who don't program in their daily life connect best with things they can read: presenting them with lisp is a bit like presenting them with mathmatical notation: even if those that are marginally familiar with them will say it's simple, it's exactly too difficult to be accessible for people who have _no_ familiarity with them at all. You actually want that verbosity of added syntax, because it lets people recognize something in what is inherently alien to them.
You don't want syntax because you don't want Magnetic Poetry kits, having to arrange very special "structure words" in very special places, and hope that "lines" make sense.
Don't think about (Lisp (notation)) -- think about the fact that the entire syntax is "this is enclosing box" (can easily be done with paper by putting smaller sheets on larger ones) and "this is the order of items within the box" (very natural to re-arrange these blocks). Lisp doesn't have lines, in that sense, and lines don't make a lot of sense in physical world.
Just to be clear, I'm not disagreeing about the fact that Lisp is a bit complicated to be first programming language _when writing text_. But its design is great for physical manipulation.
Regular folks who don't program in their daily life connect best with things they can read: presenting them with lisp is a bit like presenting them with mathmatical notation: even if those that are marginally familiar with them will say it's simple, it's exactly too difficult to be accessible for people who have _no_ familiarity with them at all. You actually want that verbosity of added syntax, because it lets people recognize something in what is inherently alien to them.