This CPU power galore is just a short lived period before people want full phone VR on a battery for two hours or what have you. You can sort of see what's in demand now for $200k jobs and the tools there don't appear to be very high level or user friendly. If anything they all require few heavy courses in statistics.
It was already like that 10 years before C was invented, but their authors didn't want to invest too much resources creating an Extended Algol, PL/I or similar compiler.
ESPOL and NEWP were already available in the 60's.
We both know that is not always true and heavily depends on the type of software though.. Take https://github.com/micropython/micropython for instance: what higher level language but C would allow that to run with the same performance as it has now, on as much different devices? C++ would be a viable answer, but when used e.g. as C + templates it's basically still a form of C and anyway your complaints have been raised in nearly the exact same wordings about C++ laguage as well..
The availability of compilers for a specific architecture is orthogonal to the language.
Pascal dialects already in the late 80's, early 90's, allowed for:
- type safe sub ranges
- proper strings
- type safe enumerations, enumerations as vector indexes
- type safe allocation (new vs malloc)
- type safe out parameters via references instead of pointers
- bounds checking and checked arithmetic (you can explicit disable them if required for performance)
- real modules via units
- pointer arithmetic is more explicit
As for MicroPython, MikroPascal from MikroElektronika supports all those tiny chips.
Sniper rifles are improving every year. Yet a rifle from the 40's can kill people too. Both deadly in the hands of an expert and dangerous in the hands of an amateur. It's the same with C. You should be able to understand the computer on that level but you don't need C just to prove it.