Sure. Lots of successful languages exist without macro facilities. Lots exist with it. Frankly I don't see much correlation with "performance-critical systems" given that the overwhelmingly dominant languages in that field both have metaprogramming facilities (C++ has two!).

I was just quibbling with the idea that putting a magic "!" on a macro somehow makes it a better design choice. I don't think it does, either as a macro or as a safety mechanism.