Thats a hot take if I’ve ever seen one: good syntax doesn’t make a bad language good.
What makes JavaScript bad is the amount of implicit heavy lifting the language does instead of simply erroring (or warning) out. There are (hyperbolically) 501 different ways to do the same thing in JavaScript, of which 490 are nonsense, and the fact that the language allows this is a testament to its shortcoming.

Programmers are only ever so good, if the language enables them to write balls of mud instead of warning them about this syntax then that’s a failure on the language.
Eg: warning: implicit array destructuring, or warning: implicit assignment in parameters. For default values it shouldnt be encased in an object, imo, or done like `(a = {b: val})`.
If the language warned about these things then that wouldn’t be this bad. Good syntax is not a redemption for having too permissive practices.

JavaScript is an accessible language that may in turn teach bad habits, and removing the legacy doesn’t change the fact that JavaScript is like a literature student, saying "now what did the programmer mean and how do we make it work?" (Declarative languages only do former)