I agree with you. I so wish that the microcomputer culture was based on Forth rather than BASIC. BASIC is a terrible language, but people do like it more than Forth for some weird reason.
(I started on ZX Spectrum in late 80s. If it had Forth, it could fit twice as much stuff into its ROM than it actually did.)
But, we live in a world where Javascript is having Haskell for a dinner. So I am not really sure why I am surprised.
(On the other hand, at least Python is a decent language, even though Lisp should have won in that particular space.)
I am aware of Factor, although I believe that conceptually, FORTH can only work in small systems. In a larger system, you can afford yourself something like Haskell (or at least Lisp) and the extensibility and proximity to hardware of FORTH will diminish in value, while the disadvantages will remain. In other words, with a bigger machine, you can go with more abstract language (distancing from hardware but keeping the extensibility), because the compiler/interpreter can be made more powerful.
I also played with FORTH mostly in Minecraft Redpower 2 (but before that I also read Jones Forth, which is excellent), unfortunately, to prove my original point, people didn't like it and longed for BASIC.
Ah, RP2. On of the finest mods that ever came out of the fantastic modding scene around Minecraft. It was one of the four foundational mods in the scene: BuildCraft, IndustrialCraft (and later IC2), Better Than Wolves, and RedPower2.
Sadly, RP2 is dead, and with it the RP2 computer model, the likes of which will likely never be seen again (for those not in the know: most mincraft mods adding computers of some sort essentially allow scripting in some HLL, and maybe a primitive DOS-style prompt, akin to ComputerCraft. Not so in RP2. RP2 computers were actually full emulated 6502s, with a FORTH monitor built in (although you could, of course, write your own). This should give you an idea of what made RP2 so special). Except not quite, because Eloraam is now working on RP3, which will actually be its own game, because she got sick of putting up with MC's limitations. Knowing Eloraam, it will be done by 2030.
Related to RedPower: OpenComputers. While it does come with Lua as the default OS / platform but it has support for arbritary computing architectures - both real and fake. I'm not sure if any has matured to the point of RP2 though (I know someome at least attempted a 6502 architecture at: https://github.com/gamax92/ocsymon)
(I started on ZX Spectrum in late 80s. If it had Forth, it could fit twice as much stuff into its ROM than it actually did.)
But, we live in a world where Javascript is having Haskell for a dinner. So I am not really sure why I am surprised.
(On the other hand, at least Python is a decent language, even though Lisp should have won in that particular space.)