It's still something programming language compilers should provide means for: optimizations, code readability, multi-threading, and access to a good library of algorithms. The enormous C/C++ legacy prevents faster development in this area. Perhaps more ROI of brainpower can be achieved by developing a better programming system than C/C++ rather than spending brains on tricks all the time.

The problem, of course, is that "young" developers just assume the compiler will sort it out -- thus, there is a clear gap in the technology. And C is not that immovable. It was Fortran before; it can be something better after. Now, machine learning can speed up making low-level optimizations in compilers where they belong.