Indeed, many think of GC languages as if GC was the only way to allocate memory.

Java is one of the languages to blame for such misunderstanding, many other languages, even Lisp variants like Interlisp and Common Lisp, provide all the tooling to manage resources like one would do in C and co languages.

Having a GC doesn't preclude those other features.

On D's case, we have the problem that language designers are against moving the GC forward, as they refuse to introduce managed pointers alongside untraced pointers.

So even optimizations that Mesa/Cedar, Modula-3 and Active Oberon were capable of before D came to be, aren't possible in D with its current language design.