Absolutely, just as there are many ways to achieve C speed in languages like Java for particular sections of code by applying non-idiomatic optimisations, there

Absolutely, just as there are many ways to achieve C speed in languages like Java for particular sections of code by applying non-idiomatic optimisations, there are also many ways to improve safety beyond just types. Even things like the borrow checker has decent alternatives (tsan, msan etc.) that can be used in existing language stacks. MISRA as you point out is another useful tool in the toolbox.