I would argue that it would be very annoying to work on a code base which wasn't like this. Having to spend so much time figuring out where your bottlenecks are and why they are there. Though you would make a fair point in regards to how much code-fascism you need when you try to make C/C++ safer than ADA. I'm sure they didn't come to this conclusion lightly, but the first thing to pop into my head is that it seems odd to do this mainly because of hiring challenges.

But C/C++ certainly did well enough for Lockheed Martin considering it's now one of their principal languages, if not the principal.