So how do you solve SIMD with C, without language extensions?
C is not a special snowflake.
Writing generic SIMD code is more portable. C has libraries, and Zig also has vector primitives available through built-in functions.
For certain problems you would want a TLA+ specification for safety and especially liveness either way. It's not like Rust absolutely guarantees correctness in all cases.
Rust sits in a sweet spot between C/Zig and languages like Java, but it's not an appropriate replacement for either of them.
There is a scalable solution for UAF that doesn't involve introducing a lifetime/region system: garbage collection. Of course, that comes with its own set of tradeoffs.
There are many cool possibilities that C++ has never explored and frankly I find your argument unimaginative.