Ada was standard in aerospace and defence projects in the UK when I started in s/w back in the 80's, although personally never worked in those areas. It may be that its perceived lack of popularity is tied to its association with those rather more secretive lines of work, although that doesn't in and of itself explain why it didn't become more broadly used - other commenters have mentioned cost, and that consideration was enough to kill another technically excellent language (Smalltalk).
My gut perception of Ada is unfortunately mediated through the murky lens of its bastard offspring PL/SQL, which is by a good distance the least favourite of any language I have ever used, although I'd be willing to entertain the argument that this is in large part due to all the ugly and ill-considered bits nailed onto it by Larry's mob rather than inherent defects in the parent language itself.
On the other hand I really quite like programming in Postgres's version of PL/SQL which I find to be pleasantly consistent and quite easy to understand.
Have only recently started with Postgres, but have been really impressed with the whole product and yes totally agree - the language seems to be designed by people who actually understand the DML tasks that programmers want to perform.
My gut perception of Ada is unfortunately mediated through the murky lens of its bastard offspring PL/SQL, which is by a good distance the least favourite of any language I have ever used, although I'd be willing to entertain the argument that this is in large part due to all the ugly and ill-considered bits nailed onto it by Larry's mob rather than inherent defects in the parent language itself.