Well, the pointer and reference distinction is there because you can't do safe memory management without it, without a thread-safe garbage collector which will hinder your ability to reach C/C++ level performance. But yes, if you're fine with the performance tradeoff GC is certainly more convenient.

I wouldn't say the syntax is complex because it's close to C++, but it isn't to everyone's taste (and that's fine; lots of people prefer that syntax and there's room for different languages for different folks).