However, I have noted in my career that almost every package I regularly use and have to do something with at the build level is written in C (or Lisp). However, I do know of one project written in C++ that I respect and does great things, and that is GNU Octave.
Lambda expressions in the STL... Go figure!
Stl is similarly elegant from the narrow perspective of inlining, and getting rid of indirection that people tend to write when doing abstract data types in C. It took me a long time of hating C++ and preferring C before I was willing to see this. I still kind of prefer C but these days I am much more willing to concede that there are strengths in C++ that you can't easily match with equivalent C code.
Please; "hacker" does not mean "inexperienced amateur", as you seem to imply it means here. The typical meaning is close to the opposite:
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html
As to C++, it has undeniable positives as well as undeniable negatives (according to plenty of experienced professionals).
This is why it is unpleasant to correct objective errors on the internet.
There are a lot of warts in the language and a lot of people in the community writing bad code. But there is a good language emerging, and plenty for low-level hackers to appreciate.