Some people like smoking meth. That's a rather incomplete argument for why it is a good idea.

C/C++ is likely fine for e.g. games programming where speed is of maximum importance and security/verifiability is not.

However in 2015 I would not write nor recommend others write new system services (e.g. DNS, DHCP, web servers, etc) in C or even C++. They're insecure by design and as history has shown us, they cannot be made secure.

That all being said, as there is a massive code base of pre-existing code it is often impractical to not continue these projects in C/C++. It would require tens of years of work to do so. However if an OpenSSL replacement was written in a more secure language with verification being a priority from the ground up, I'd be all over that like a cat on tuna.