If I'm a developer, I've got the problem I mentioned. If I'm a user, I only have the problem if I build from source.

Either way, with a standardised build tool like leiningen, I don't have the problem because, as a developer, I only need leiningen. As a user building from source, I only need leiningen. Both use cases are much simpler.

However, having said that, I was only referring to the developer experience in my comment. I'm not really too sure what you read it as, but like I say above, I don't think it really matters: its a problem either way and both go away with a standard build tool.