Strauss presented a particularly interesting paper at ETS this year entitled “Why the English Standard Version (ESV) should not become the Standard English Version.” (for a page with all 13 parts, click here) I am currently reading through it.  He is claiming that the ESV is not ready for prime time for a variety of reasons, saying:

So I like the ESV. I am writing this article, however, because I have heard a number of Christian leaders claim that the ESV is the “Bible of the future”—ideal for public worship and private reading, appropriate for adults, youth and children. This puzzles me, since the ESV seems to me to be overly literal—full of archaisms, awkward language, obscure idioms, irregular word order, and a great deal of “Biblish.” Biblish is produced when the translator tries to reproduce the form of the Greek or Hebrew without due consideration for how people actually write or speak. The ESV, like other formal equivalent versions (RSV; NASB; NKJV; NRSV), is a good supplement to versions that use normal English, but is not suitable as a standard Bible for the church. This is because the ESV too often fails the test of “standard English.”

  He makes his claims, not to bash the ESV, but to encourage people to improve it.  You can find Bill Mounce’s responce to his paper here.