"lots of klunky, ugly things" I wonder how much of that is caused by too complex thinking. It seems that simplicity is very difficult for most people.

"You don't have to use unneeded features" True, but that doesn't work in practice, for example the intentions to use only limited C++ features in new projects, that end up bogged down with the other features anyway because of "new toy to play with" effect. What isn't there can't be used and keeps the language lean and clean (and not mean ;-) ).