In my lifetime the memory hierarchy has grown from 3 levels (register, main memory, disk) to at least 8 levels (register, L1 Cache, L2 Cache, L3 Cache, VM, main memory, disk, web). A lot of people like the guy who wrote this paper have no patience for a language that can still run most 1971 C programs!

Every year people who do not understand why C is so successful try make a name for themselves by breaking what makes the language great (such as the complete agnostic set of control structures). C has successfully remained portable and performant for 50Y+ because of its flat memory model (with a few tweaks such as "volatile".)