> I would say the value proposition is control and performance, and more pragmatically ubiquity. If the value proposition were simplicity, why aren't C programmers writing Lisp instead? If it's simplicity and control, why aren't they writing assembly? At this point, C is little more than a bad abstraction that people are nostalgic for.

Because it is hard model hardware in idiomatic Lisp and Assembly in not portable and not very productive. C is somewhat simple, portable, productive and fast language for writing code that is as close to a machine without having to use Assembly. It can be easily combined with Assembly when needed. Barring C++ it has the biggest tooling support of any other language available.