No, I think he says that C++ is overly complex and unsafe without a real need for that complexity and unsafety. And it seems that what you define as "expertise" translates to "the developer learned to make up for the language flaws". Expertise should mean having the necessary knowledge to make software quickly and efficiently, not avoiding the language pitfalls. When you have to read so much text in order to use a language correctly, then there probably is some problem in it.
Take a look at Rust, it's aiming for the same niche as C++ while being less complex and giving safety guarantees. And they seem to be having success at that. It's doable.
I recommend you the post that I link below. It tries to explain to a C++ programmer why he should learn Rust. It has modules, generics, green threads and concurrency built in. There's much to love. http://featherweightmusings.blogspot.com.ar/2014/04/rust-for...