I don't mind the flexibility of using braces or the end keyword to end
things like blocks.  I also do not mind the optional parenthesis for
function calls.  I've started to write mine without them just to get
used to the idea so that when I have some down time Haskell will not
look as weird.  It also save me some typing which is nice since I have
difficulty using my hands. Though I do think that using parenthesis
*is* better in terms of letting people know that something is a
function and not something else when it takes arguments.

With respect to formal grammar specifications, I do not think that
they are necessarily as useful if they are viewed in isolation.  What
I would like to see is the grammar spec integrated into the standard
documentation so people can readily cross-reference what they read
with the spec.  When I first started playing around with Haskell I
found it very hard to get a handle on things because I had to
constantly flip back between the documentation for a function, Real
World Haskell, and the specification.  Having to build a map in your
head of a language by looking at a dictionary and a grammar book was
acceptable prior to the invention of hypertext.  We should not have to
be doing that in the modern era with any language.  But it seems like
we have simply overlooked this part of learning and continued to do
things the old way as if we had a limit to how many pages we could
cram into a single electronic document.