I feel like this is a solution in search of a problem that was already solved by C.

These "types" are hindley-milner types and have almost nothing to do with what C calls a type.

Your "feelings" may help you make snap judgements that can keep you alive, but they cannot help you code and they will conspire against you when you effort to learn new things. Nobody wants to feel wrong, and you will feel wrong many times when you learn something new, but it is the only way to actually learn the thing. Remember this the next time you have "feelings" about knowledge

Except C being typed Assembly is a myth, first of all there were already high level systems languages during the decade that predates C, secondly there are plenty of CPU capabilities not exposed in C, if at all only via compiler specific language extensions, beyond the language standard.