Ah, "make C++ better by adding more features", we meet again
If you don't want comfortable, common features enshrined in the language, you can just write C. Personally, I think using C for anything complex is torture.
So "idiomatic C++" is a hilarious moving target, and the body of code (one of C++'s advantages) is a hodgepodge of idioms, feature usage, interfaces, etc.
That said, C++ is what it is, and it is kind of proud of it, so I say to C++, keep C++ing.
What's your plan to improve something that does not involve adding improvements?
No, it isn't. If anything, it's famous for its spartan standard library. It only received smart pointers in C++11 and a file system library in C++17.
> It desperately needs to be able to remove stuff but it can't because of its desire to maintain ABI compatibility with binaries compiled on older versions.
This is outright wrong. Some standards already deprecate and remove features, like std::auto_ptr going away in C++17 or volatile in C++20.
You're trying to pass off too many baseless assertions as undisputed facts.