I will take the bait. The reasons I use C: Fast compilation times, long-term stability, portability to many architectures, multiple implementations (no lock-in

I will take the bait. The reasons I use C: Fast compilation times, long-term stability, portability to many architectures, multiple implementations (no lock-in to a single industry controlled implementation), high performance, conceptually minimalistic, relatively simple to understand, learn and teach, many resources, it has an international engineering standard, if needed you can always bend the rules to achieve your goal - especially in the context of embedded and systems programming, generally still evolving in the right direction, and - also a big factor - it is just fun to write.