[jfarmer]

Better question: why would anyone use a "harder" language, all else being equal?

[hairsupply]

Entrenchment. The main product I work on is 3.5 million lines of C++, built with MCF and ATL. We can frankestein other technologies into there, but its expensive and clunky. The cost of rewriting the whole thing is prohibitive, so C++ it is.