setq would in fact evaluate its second argument (and bind it to the name specified by the 1st).
Picolisp has a special rule for (literal) lists starting with a (literal) number, they're implicitly quoted instead of the CAR being interpreted as a function:
> if the CAR of the list is a number, the whole list is returned as it is
This makes more sense considering a second quirk of Picolisp: numbers can be used as functions, in which case they're interpreted as a pointer to the executable code to run.
And from what I understand Picolisp's execution model doesn't have special forms as such, rather function definition specifies whether they receive their arguments evaluated or not.
