It's not that I'm attached to C and C++. It's that I think the Web as a development platform is kind of a Rube Goldberg machine, and I think we as a community of programmers could probably do a whole lot better.
It's not about what's better or worse. It's about where the audience is. The web absolutely nailed reach, but if you're fine with forfeiting that, you're still free to build with whatever you fancy.
Are the lower layers really any less Goldbergian though? I would bet that everything from the physical hardware on up is laden with path dependencies, workarounds, and efficiency vs portability tradeoffs.
There's more to goodness than technical aesthetics -- ubiquity is important and arguably harder to achieve.
However, if it really bugs you that much, why not create a Great C Club? The necessity of a good community web site to power it notwithstanding.