Yeah the band aids add up. We'd need things such as static analysers anyway for spotting problems, optimizing, etc. However, an extra problem with C/C++ is that the languages are so complex to analyse that people get friggin' PhD's for certifying or formalizing even a subset of them. And the
average programmer working against the clock is supposed to make something robust with such a tool? That's ridiculous.
" because either it isn't available on their platform"
I tried to solve that with my tools (lang X) using X-to-C compiler w/ seemless FFI for 3rd party code. Encouraged other languages to do that with many having done it before I got on the scene: Modula, Oberon, Ada, LISP/Scheme, and so on. Let them use good language with hardware/OS of choosing. Ignored it as you said.
"Just like coders that despite C++ safety improvements over C, use it as C with C++ compiler."
David Thornley brought this up on Schneier's blog when he said he was distrusting about those who mentioned "C/C++" as if they're same thing. That using modern C++ prevents many C issues if it's used correctly. Now, I abandoned C++ as anything but a compiler target after all the 90's empirical evaluations showed it was garbage. I think my critique that it lets you shoot yourself in foot easily and is hard to analyse probably still applies like it did when I cited them together. It's why I do.
Nonetheless, I honestly don't know how modern C++ developers code when they're doing it "right" with style guides, newer language features, peer review, etc. I think it would be fair in these discussions to do some new, empirical studies comparing proper C++ to Free Pascal, Go, Rust, Ada, etc in various attributes like was done in 90's. Critical that it's used as pro's say it should be so as not to mislead readers about effectiveness (i.e. C++ used like C didn't work). You know any resources I could use to catch up on topic that capture most or all of how pro's do C++ with modern features? Not necessarily most recent standard but what has been used at least past 5 years maybe 10.