>>24I disagree. C is used in high performance applications as well; saying that the status quo is acceptable because C is used at lower levels doesn't excuse the lack of reliable standardization at higher ones. Many applications stand to benefit from this.
Concerning memory ordering, my point is that any code that works with externally visible memory must have ways to limit reordering only for the memory that is shared. C historically hasn't provided a good way to do this (volatile is a joke). C11 improves the situation somewhat in the case of threads but practically speaking people are unsure how well the semantics will work when applied to things like MMIO devices.