There is no grand goal that I know of. I wish more importance were being placed on keeping existing well-written code working, which includes continued support

There is no grand goal that I know of. I wish more importance were being placed on keeping existing well-written code working, which includes continued support for what might be considered near-obsolete. If one wanted to design a new (not fully compatible) language, that could have lofty goals; just don't call it "C".