I can't think of a reason that would apply here. For me at least if I were on a toolchain so crap I had to use C you'd have to pay me a lot of money not to work on something else.

All my embedded design work has been in C as i don't need all the extra cruft.

Also anything i want to be very fast on limited hardware i also use C and C only.

As for any hobby programming i do on the side, C is usually my goto choice, unless i want to be very esoteric.. following along the lines of: "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations."

I find that C actually gets in my way compared to D when I am writing code with limited resources. The end result is semantically the same but with D I can avoid macros, inline asm is easier etc.

while this makes all the sense in the world to even a seasoned C programmer...

I've been doing it so long I could write macros in my sleep, and inline asm is a fun little exercise.

Though i absolutely agree, especially with someone newer, that could be a major road block. Might want to learn D just to be more efficient (even though I will never abandon my first love completely)

Almost the only reason I would choose c over c++ for embedded would be if the c++ compiler was garbage for the platform or the team wouldn't allow it.