It's a false economy. Mediocre isn't good enough. The fact that mediocre is better than nothing isn't relevant when so very much better was easy.

We're talking about thermionic valves versus transistors in terms of how dramatically worse this option is than actually doing the Right Thing™.

The valve computers weren't relegated to a few specialist tasks, or seen as a particular trade-off that's no longer applicable for some applications, they were just swept aside, because they were obsolete. The memory unsafe languages, likewise, should just go away.

Yes, unfortunately just like those valve computers, progress only comes at the expense of a complete change of generation, where there aren't enough people propagating outdated concepts.