It could be argued though that less usage means fewer stake holders to convince of the need for specific changes to the language, which helps with increased evo

It could be argued though that less usage means fewer stake holders to convince of the need for specific changes to the language, which helps with increased evolution. (I have only cursory knowledge of what's happening in C and none about what's happening in Pascal nowadays, just pointing out that being a smaller community might ironically help the language).