Right, I think my point though is it wasn't really up to the task until a few years into the project. These days I would personally rate it better than GCC base

Right, I think my point though is it wasn't really up to the task until a few years into the project. These days I would personally rate it better than GCC based on my experience. GCC's relevance remains in that it still supports more platforms, or say, the Linux kernel still uses it.