Same experience with Lisp / Scheme here. There's a truly awe-inspiring amount of computer science research published about Scheme, in particular. I learned a TON, but I also learned that if I'm actually trying to get stuff done, I'm better off using something else, such as Lua or Python.
Lua, while even more Scheme-like than Python, was designed primarily for use as an embedded scripting engine in another languages (typically C or C++). Instead of putting effort into making Lua clones of typical libraries, they worked on making re-using other languages' existing libraries quite easy. It seems to stand the whole NIH thing on its head, too. (Though, languages such as Chicken Scheme that compile to C can inter-operate better than most.)
Lua, while even more Scheme-like than Python, was designed primarily for use as an embedded scripting engine in another languages (typically C or C++). Instead of putting effort into making Lua clones of typical libraries, they worked on making re-using other languages' existing libraries quite easy. It seems to stand the whole NIH thing on its head, too. (Though, languages such as Chicken Scheme that compile to C can inter-operate better than most.)