So, in essence this would mean to many that Rusts safety focus happens too late for it to be a big enough benefit for having to give up the investment in modern C++? As in, memory safety is a solved problem with modern C++?
The addition of move semantics and using references everywhere makes pointers unnecessary for the most part. You can use STL containers for putting your items into so shouldn't see raw "new" or "delete" operations in your own code very much; this is particularly true where you define your own move operators and move constructors.
It's a difficult habit to break though!
See Stroustrup's "The C++ Programming Language Fourth Edition" (the blue book) section 3.3.3 Resource Management and 3.2.1.2 "A Container", where in this early part of the book Stroustrup explicitly directs to 'avoid "naked" new and delete operations" and to "use resource handles and RAII to manage resources".
See std::move to force moving where it isn't clear that you're moving things.
Further reading: http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/move_operator http://stroustrup.com/C++11FAQ.html#default2
Only greefield projects can benefit from modern C++ and there are very few out there.
After reading the updated version of Effective C++, I doubt the average C++ developer will be able to deal with a mixed codebase of pre-C++98, C++98, C++03, C++11 and C++14.
But it helps to learn the new stuff and apply it within my own projects as best I can.
In reality, there is nothing wrong with C++, particularly not modern C++ (since c++11) as the approaches laid out in Stroustrup's book discourage writing C++ in the old-fashioned "let's throw pointers around!" approach.
As with ANY language, if you write it badly, bad things will happen. The language choice doesn't mean bug-free code.