[jefbyokyie]

> Does C really need this?

No.

> Do languages need to grow in this way?

No.

> The overriding virtue of C is simplicity.

It's no longer simple, especially not with the C11 memory model (which got retrofitted from C++11, and is totally incomprehensible without reading multiple hundreds of pages of PhD dissertations); however, gratuitously complicating C shouldn't be done.