to be honest, idiomatic code in haskell-land tends to be written right-to-left and not left-to-right, so you'd usually write it with the ($) and (.) operators.
I personally have gotten used to reading it right to left more, as have probably most people who use haskell extensively.
And I think it's only fair that haskell chose a 1 character operator:
composing functions and applying them to arguments is the main way to make programs, so it's good that you have to type the least amount characters possible to do it, compared to something like F# where all the function composition and application operator take two characters (|>, <|, >>, <<)
I recently started using (&) a lot (e.g. `something arg1 arg2 & liftIO`) and frankly I think it's fantastic for readability, especially with adaptors like `liftIO` or `void` in `do` blocks. The relevant information is up front in a consistent position in the block; the adaptor is only even noticeable when I actually read the line - rather than being something I need to semi-consciously ignore. I also sometimes use it for chains of pure function application when the alternative is to read bottom-to-top or use where/let bindings with arbitrary names.
`import "flow" Flow` gives you (|>) = ($), (<|) = (&), (<.) = (.) and (.>) (by analogy). I slightly wish it were part of base - the symbols are much more intuitive, and I think that's important for increasing adoption - but I tend not to use it because it's non-standard. Most potential/plausible Haskell users, after all, haven't used Haskell at all, let alone extensively. Such people need to be taken seriously in decision making processes even though they almost necessarily have no voice.
I don't think the number of characters is at all relevant to the decision though: being non-surprising and understandable are far more important than using one vs two chars which in this case pull in both directions and I reckon the balance lies with sticking to the standard.
