[DLudwig]

The authors of the recent, P0267 C++ graphics paper (aka "io2d"; latest revisions getting posted to https://github.com/mikebmcl/io2dts/tree/master/papers), as far as I've seen (online, mostly), aren't interested in making a "toy" API. Many, if not all of them, want people to be able to do 'real' work with it. They've also seemed willing to accept constructive feedback on it, and are cognizant that there is a good amount more work to be done, if something useful is to be a result!

There is, I think, room to work on different C++ features in parallel. A graphics expert isn't necessarily going to want, or be qualified, to lead a charge on all future, non-graphics features.

In terms of 'other languages have it too', here's one platform/standard that has it: HTML5. It's Canvas API is pretty widely available, although in practice, perhaps only with sufficiently powerful runtime-processing power.

Regarding software renderers, I'd argue that these are still useful, in some use cases. I've worked on some projects whereby a constexpr/compile-time canvas-style implementation would have been useful, I imagine.