There's nothing inherently bad with C++ as a language any more than there is anything inherently wrong with Basic.
Just like there's nothing inherently bad with Linux as an OS, any more than there is anything wrong with Windows.The difference is the goals of the language. The goals of Basic is to create readable programs, comparable to plain English. The goal of C++ is to introduce Simula-like object oriented principles into a C-like language, without adding any more keywords or operators to the language than absolutely nessecary. C ofcourse was written in the glorious days when AT&T hackers ruled the world. Sure, there are a lot of things (like STL) that make C++ more sensible, but it's still fundamental design restrictions from the early 70's that dictate the way we program today, many of which (such as storage concerns, and compilation restrictions) havn't been an issue for at least the last decade...