Sometimes when you fill a vacuum, it still sucks.
I'm just an observer of Java, and where Microsoft wants to go with C# is too early to tell.
I listen to mostly-classical music, but mostly by radio - I'm not an audiophile.
Pretty much everything on the web uses those two things: C and UNIX.
C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success.
C is peculiar in a lot of ways, but it, like many other successful things, has a certain unity of approach that stems from development in a small group.