The overall goal of reducing deployed LOC, complexity and low-level boilerplate is laudable and doable so by using a C isomorphic linking language (can call into and can call from) to gradually, experimenting by converting one module at a time and increasing tempo of semver API refactorings for also reducing code and features to the essentials. "The journey of a thousand miles begins..."

Also, we need more unit testing, fuzzing and formally proven correct libraries (a-la seL4). Most C development is really bad about unit testing and fuzzing because it's incredibly laborious and verbose, even when it's known to be a good idea.