Yeah I was a C++ dev for 12 years before switching out. I miss being able to hit the metal, its depressing to work with Python Pandas that are advertised as "nearly as fast as C". Meanwhile our main Java app has huge GC lockup problems. Hopefully C++ will soon be at a level I can recommend it for business applications again.
Sounds like you could take a look at D as an alternative to Java if you want to hit the bare metal and still have (optional) GC. I like D a little more coming from a C# / Java background but wanting something more natively compiled.
