The true goal of C++ is the self-preservation and funding of the ISO Committee specification “engine”, while compilers are merely an accidental by-product.
Once you see this then suddenly a lot of odd behavior makes sense. For example the committee can’t break ABI because then the old companies wouldn’t fund the new c++ standard, but would fund a committee that maintains/forks the old thing. The complexity / bureaucracy also provides jobs for those involved in many ways including writing new books every year and or consulting.
While end consumers might really care about compile speed, modularization, security, and all of the things modern languages give, that is secondary to keeping the committee alive.
Younger me would be like, oh no this is horrible someone will fix this! Older me is more sober and understands that once a system is up and running it will continue as is (this being an example of Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy). Security by the way of migrations to Rust is causing what the committee sees as the first real threat to its existence as its patrons start adopting more and more Rust. As a result the committee is proposing to break compatibility as a means to keep them around just a little longer. Note: Actually fixing the security issues is not important only giving enough for sponsors to not leave so we will see what actually happens.