Ok, I will address your argument directly. You state that it's possible to write maintainable C in the best case, but that the worst-case is more revealing. However if we're to be fair, we must also look at the worst case for scripting languages. For example, which of these is more maintainable?

http://www.p-nand-q.com/python/obfuscated_python.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Obfuscated_C_Code...

I would suggest that neither one is particularly maintainable, nor are either of these styles of code likely to appear in the real world. Therefore the worst case for these languages is not really more telling, and not applicable to this discussion.