Actually the code = data does not particularly enforce late compiling - it just means you can have a more efficient means to a] talk to the compiler and b] pre-process code before it reaches the compiler (since you can process structured data instead of strings). Being able to talk to the compiler from running code at all (using eval for example) is of course a good reason to optimize for all kinds of compiling speed-ups.

Anyway elisp is OK (if fairly slow), but it's quite archaic compared to scheme, common lisp and other "modern" lisps (basically any serious lisp created/standardized since the 80's). Most of the details are fairly easy to overcome, but the lack of true built-in support for lexical scoping (and closures) is probably the most annoying.