> I cannot agree that programming language choice is a primary driver in a product's success or failure

I've rewritten a very large and complex macro assembler program into C. The original developers were gone. Nobody would touch that assembler code. I volunteered. The result was a program that could be maintained and could be ported to multiple diverse platforms needed by the company.

I tried to port Optlink (a linker for Win32) from assembler into C. It failed because the market for Win32 programming died, and so I abandoned the project.

My Empire game started out in BASIC. Then it was converted to FORTRAN, then PDP-11 assembler, then C on the PC, then D.