This happened recently (in D timeframe) and is still a hack that basically creates a different language that's a subset of D - which is the dirtiest way to fix

This happened recently (in D timeframe) and is still a hack that basically creates a different language that's a subset of D - which is the dirtiest way to fix an initial design mistake. If D came out as betterc from the go I guarantee you the adoption would have been much better - this way you're stuck with legacy decisions of a language that was never really that popular to begin with (unlike C - C++ story). Also back when it launched LLVM wasn't really a thing (GCC was probably the closest thing to having a portable backend but it wasn't nearly as clear cut especially with the licensing and all that anti-extensibility attitude), and D having it's own custom backend was also an issue. I applaud the effort but at this point I think it will never get mainstream popularity like Rust. I'm sure it's useful to people but it had it's time in the spotlight, I don't see how they get the momentum shift.