I agree that some language features are nice to have, but you won't convince me that C/C++ is bad because it's old, or because it's too down to earth. In short: you can't replace simple tools like a simple hammer and screwdriver. You don't always need them, but they're not replaceable, so to me I'll prefer learning a down to earth language and suffer the right consequences of that. Having to manage memory is the bread and butter of any programmer. I hate going around avoiding gimmicks of new languages and API just because the language pretend that it's doing something magically, there's always something that will come back and bite you.
And for the minecraft argument: minecraft is a huge PITA when it comes to memory and I've seen servers just burn because of memory management. Notch buying large house won't convince me to use java or any other managed memory language. The argument "that guy got rich, so it's an okay language" is not okay with me...
I'm very conservative when it comes to technology and programming languages. I prefer using old tools, because if they're old, that means that they stayed.