This answer assumes you have golfing languages in mind when you refer to esolangs. If you are actually referring to languages specialised for specific problems, then these are heavily discouraged in most cases*.

I'm sorry to hear you're leaving. This issue has been raised before, and I can sympathise with you in that I don't find languages with abbreviated syntax particularly interesting (in and of themselves). In over 3 years, I've never posted in CJam/Pyth/GolfScript - I stick with Python most of the time, and occasionally post in other 'normal' languages.

However, I have found that voters tend to side with cleverness and creativity over the number of bytes. In my experience, a clever solution in a standard language (like Python, JavaScript, C or even Java) will always outscore straightforward answers in golfier languages.

But I think you are missing the converse. An answer may be written in a standard programming language without being new or creative. In fact, many answers in common languages are quite poorly golfed. On the other hand, answers written in golfing languages can be amazingly creative and hack-y, especially since expert golfers tend to use these languages.

tl;dr - if you post a clever answer and explanation, you'll be upvoted regardless of language.

* As for the hello world question, it is unique - even boring answers in normal languages (e.g. print"Hello, World!") have 10-20 upvotes. And you mentioned answers sitting at the bottom of the fifth page - questions with five pages of answers aren't a fair representation of PPCG either.

This answer assumes you have golfing languages in mind when you refer to esolangs. If you are actually referring to languages specialised for specific problems, then these are heavily discouraged in most cases*.

I'm sorry to hear you're leaving. This issue has been raised before, and I can sympathise with you in that I don't find languages with abbreviated syntax particularly interesting (in and of themselves). In over 3 years, I've never posted in CJam/Pyth/GolfScript - I stick with Python most of the time, and occasionally post in other 'normal' languages.

However, I have found that voters tend to side with cleverness and creativity over the number of bytes. In my experience, a clever solution in a standard language (like Python, JavaScript, C or even Java) will always outscore straightforward answers in golfier languages.

But I think you are missing the converse. An answer may be written in a standard programming language without being new or creative. In fact, many answers in common languages are quite poorly golfed. On the other hand, answers written in golfing languages can be amazingly creative and hack-y, especially since expert golfers tend to use these languages.

tl;dr - if you post a clever answer and explanation, you'll be upvoted regardless of language.

* As for the hello world question, it is unique - even boring answers in normal languages (e.g. print"Hello, World!") have 10-20 upvotes. And you mentioned answers sitting at the bottom of the fifth page - questions with five pages of answers aren't a fair representation of PPCG either.