I don't think that's even up for debate. As far as I'm concerned they have definitely met their goal.
I find it similar to the fact that, while I am thankful that the operator's manual for my toaster was written at a 4th grade reading level, I find it unlikely that anyone has that task in mind when they say they want to be a writer when they grow up.
I think Go is a genuinely fantastic experiment testing the idea that it's actually easier to write and modify long, boiler-platy, but painfully explicit code.
