Some people should really be using bounds checks and option types more often, and I often use bounded functions for handling strings in fixed-size buffers. Some people write bugs into their programs for a lack of understanding or care given to these aspects of the language; but many people also make wonderful and unique things out of them.

I just don't think that the baby should be thrown out because somebody overfilled the bathwater. There is a time and a place for zero tests, null pointers, and pointer/index arithmetic.

Yes. In MMUless microprocessors with kbytes of memory or less