This seems really strange to me. The C committee recently seemed pretty opposed [1] to adding fat pointers [edit: originally wrote bounds checking but that was a thinko] as eg WalterBright has called for. [2] Addressing that seems like it'd have a lot more benefit for a much smaller change to the language. I don't really agree with you on "the only thing C needs to do is keep on working" but if they're not willing to entertain that proposal, why on earth would they be talking about throwing in exceptions?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22866288

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24454369