I just wanted to say, I totally understand where you're coming from here. I often end up writing libraries in C explicitly because that's the easiest way to hit as many targets as possible and not impose any unexpected runtimes on other languages, even if I know it would be easier to write in another language. So, I would say that not enough language designers think this way, and it's really refreshing to see you describing this point of view.
I've often thought that a useful exercise would be to come up with a language that adds just a bit more power than C but stays within the boundaries of the C runtime, just for this purpose.
However, if new languages like Rust can deliver this, all the better! One language that I once looked at with this in mind was Clay[1], which seemed to basically be C with more safety and generics. However, it doesn't seem to be as nicely supported as Rust, and perhaps Rust's static analysis and concurrency support will be more powerful.
I've often thought that a useful exercise would be to come up with a language that adds just a bit more power than C but stays within the boundaries of the C runtime, just for this purpose.
However, if new languages like Rust can deliver this, all the better! One language that I once looked at with this in mind was Clay[1], which seemed to basically be C with more safety and generics. However, it doesn't seem to be as nicely supported as Rust, and perhaps Rust's static analysis and concurrency support will be more powerful.
[1] http://claylabs.com/clay/