Yes, it feels like legacy because Apple is making it into legacy. Do you not admit that Apple's actions have a profound effect on the relative adoption of the two languages among Apple developers?
I would note that Swift is, like Objective-C, almost nonexistent outside of the Apple ecosystem, even though cross-platform use is possible. Developers who are deliberately outside the Apple ecosystem are generally not interested in a programming language controlled by Apple.
Granted, Swift got a huge kick from the job department, but what you wrote said a lot more than that:
> A language that makes life hard will not survive past the moment it can be replaced.
> Objective-C was awkward as both art and job, and it thrived for fifteen years because it was the only door into the most lucrative developer ecosystem ever built; the moment Swift existed, it evaporated and now survives as a shadow, preserved in its descendant.
Apparently you're admitting now that "the moment" is a gross exaggeration. You're also admitting that the "art" aspect is controversial, a matter of personal opinions that vary. I'm not sure why you claimed that Objective-C was "awkward as... job" even before Swift existed?
I certainly don't see how using C++ would be less awkward on the job for developers than ObjC when the job was primarily calling ObjC system API.