I think it's worth it. Everything is lambda-in-a-straight-jacket-like. The question is how can you mix and match straight jackets, and how convoluted is programming.
Categorical logic reframes the lambda calculus as being "simply" the internal language of cartesian-closed categories. Doing the same for other categories leads to other languages that are not so lambda-like. Sometimes categories are best characterized by graphical languages, as seen in string diagrams and generalizations thereof. Studying these things involves a rather thriving subfield at the intersection of PLT, category theory and foundational mathematics/logic.
Also look at https://github.com/conal/concat