At which point it feels like some sort of high-level assembly-like language, which is simple enough to compile efficiently and stay crossplatform, with some primitives for calls, jumps, etc. could find a nice niche.

Maybe this already exists, even? A stripped down version of C? A more advanced LLVM IR? I feel like this is a problem that could use a resolution, just maybe not with enough of a scale for anyone to bother, vs. learning C, assembly of given architecture, or one of the new and fancy compiled languages.

Well, Zig is aiming to be a "saner C", and mostly succeeding so far. I hope they make it to production.

Rust is a somewhat more thorough attempt to actually course-correct.