I find it implicit in where you go with the piece after that that in some places it's important to constrain the damaging side of innovation, and in others it's important to encourage the positive things innovation has to offer.

That's an excellent way to phrase it. I've commonly said of RUP (though I think it applies -- if less so -- to Java): "the advantage of RUP is that it protects you from bad programmers; the disadvantage is that it also protects you from good programmers." The constraints inherit in "enterprise Java" may provide some level of protection from mediocre developers, but (as you said) it also somewhat hampers good creative developers.

It's a tightrope walk to give a development team the freedom to create while protecting the customer from the wrong kinds of creative. It's much more a social problem than a language choice problem, of course: it almost merits its own meditation.

Thanks for sharing your insights!