The problem is that everybody agrees on that "universal truism" but nobody can agree on what it means. "Clear, simple, straight forward, plain as day" is up to

The problem is that everybody agrees on that "universal truism" but nobody can agree on what it means. "Clear, simple, straight forward, plain as day" is up to the reader. They're also a moving target. To some people, C is simple. To other people, C is full of "complex and subtle" sources of pain. To some people, a VM with a GC and a JIT is "complex and subtle". To other people, using a HLL with those features enables them to write programs which are much simpler and clearer. These positions also change over time. A JIT is a fairly standard technique in 2019, but in 1973 it was still very much in the research phase. Even the idea of writing a kernel in such a HLL as C was once revolutionary. I have an SDET friend who calls these types of universal truisms "apple pie", as in, you hold a meeting and say "Apple pie is good, right?" and everybody nods and says "Yes!" and then goes back to work and absolutely nothing was learned or decided.