And also with the new C++11 standard the features for things like threading are actually better than the parallels in languages like Java (at least, from what I’ve seen so far).
I can see why people outside specific domains like systems programming and games dev were moving away from it before but C++11 has really brought it up to par again.
I think there’s often a lot of confusion about that whole “keeping pace” thing, as well. C++ can’t keep pace with modern high-level languages and it wasn’t meant to. The fact that someone actually has to work out how to convert these specified features into the assembly language of many, many different architecture families (lots of which have extremely basic instruction sets) directly restricts how complicated C++ can become. Its own development is implicitly linked to the development of more complicated and capable CPUs. Not to mention the other complicating factors like the multi-paradigm design and the fact that the STL focuses as much on efficiency guarantees as on features.