> Even with optimizations enabled, the output of C code is usually much closer to the source (e.g. more "recognisable") than (for instance) highly abstracted C++ or Rust code.
That's usually true, but you can write C++ and Rust codes that more closely map to machine code as well. Most C code exhibits that only because you can't have enough abstractions to disrupt that mapping. It is good when you do need that kind of correspondence, but most applications rarely need them, and even performance-sensitive applications don't need them all the time. C does give you a knob, but that knob is stuck in a lower but not lowest position.
