GC generally only results in the occasional missed frame, it doesn't negatively impact overall frametimes in a meaningful way if it's implemented correctly. GC malloc() and free() are both fast.

I think the average player would not appreciate hourly crashes, especially in games without aggressive autosave - that potentially means having to replay 10+ minutes worth of gameplay on a regular basis because your timing was bad, when you consider how a typical game is built. You could compensate for this in some game types I guess, like in a competitive FPS you'd restart the client software between matches and hope a match never lasts long enough to crash. But that's no substitute for real robustness, IMO.