I'd also argue that with well used RAII, programs can be written more reliably than in some GC languages as you have finer control over the lifetime of system r

I'd also argue that with well used RAII, programs can be written more reliably than in some GC languages as you have finer control over the lifetime of system resources like Windows HANDLES or sockets and can free them on scope destruct with a simple wrapper class. On .net I'm constantly fiddling with IDispose and checking each object if it needs a 'using' block so I'm not leaking resources. On long running resource intensive apps, this can make a real difference and I prefer the finer control C++ gives me.