"There isn't another language that has both the large-scale modularization given by OO and low-level efficiency of direct pointer manipulation and other C features."
Objective C?
Objective C?
I often use a paraphrase of the Winston Churchill quote as well. There are probably many better languages for many other applications, however for high performance, cross platform large scale apps C++ is still the only game in town.
Joe's point that all the complexities have reasons behind them is a really good one. I'd suggest reading Stroustrup's "The Design and Evolution of C++" for more information.
• If you're calling a nonvirtual method, you don't have to pay the vtable cost at all, just the cost of passing this. And most methods in C++ are nonvirtual.
• A call through a vtable is typically a couple of indexed fetches and an indirect jump. Objective-C's mechanism involves a hash-table lookup, which is a bit slower.
Then code the performance sensitive parts in C and link it from the language that is best suited to express the solution.