I find the '14 and '17 additions vastly improve C++ and in fact added things that I had just come to appreciate in Swift. So don't be too put off; learning the new stuff will help you if you need to adopt a more-recent language too.
I don't think that's necessarily the case. C++'s famed backwards compatibility, source of so many issues, is also a fabulous strength. There's nothing stopping one from writing C++03, while gradually adapting C++11 and beyond as time/circumstances permit (which is what I'm doing at my job, maintaining a massive legacy codebase while stymied by slow uptake on newer compilers by my corporate overlords...)
> It's no wonder 'senior' devs prefer to use plain C
Not this senior (in years, at least :)) dev. I've tasted RAII and I can't go back...