The point is not the _adding_, it's the effective _replacement_. It's like a toolkit with some lame tools. Even though you keep them in there for old time's sake, you add new tools which you use instead of the old ones. So, yes, your toolkit is heavier, but working with the updated toolkit is not like it was working with the old one.
> C++ is too complicated
Well, it is certainly complicated. Certainly more complicated than anyone would like, including the WG21 bigshots. But its (effective) design principles necessitate complexity:
1. Multi-paradigmaticity (sp?)
2. Backwards compatibility
it could drop one or both of those and be much simpler, like you suggest.
> The only way to actually fix that would be to face the monster and slim down C++
Except then it wouldn't be C++, but another language - which is fine. Another famous quote by Stroustrup is: "Within C++, there is a much smaller and cleaner language struggling to get out"
... but that language would not be Rust, it would be slimmer underpinnings of is idiomatic C++20 today. Or perhaps of what idiomatic C++26 would be :-P
> C++ isn't too unsafe it's just too easy to get things wrong
I disagree; or rather, these days, I disagree: This has, paradoxically, gotten much much better - because of all of those additions you decry. They have made it so that you can steer clear of unsafe and complex territory for a lot more things. You write more intuitive, safer code; and are better protected by the libraries you use and by improved tooling. It's true that the underpinnings of these libraries are now (usually) bigger and more complex, but the end result for the developer is the opposite.
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PS - I would really love UFCS to get into the language, I think the opposition to it is kind of inane.