Well, yes, it is. You can turn Common Lisp (as it is) into a "language that doesn't need those macros" simply by going through the spec and changing everything that says, e.g., "macro DEFUN" to "special form DEFUN". The result would be a language that's no more powerful, no easier to implement, and marginally less convenient to use.

So how can "needing those macros" be a weakness, if the minimal change that makes the language not "need those weakness" improves nothing and actually makes the language a little worse?