2010
I also immediately noticed it was an old post, because the new standard version have all but eliminated the frustrating complexities of the language. :D
Many newer feature is, indeed, much cleaner.
But C++ have so many backward compatibility hacks and old code, it is impossible to "eliminate" the complexities.
Indeed. New versions never break the old. Every new feature has to account for interactions with the rest of the language.
Herb Sutter's https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront could be a good strategy to clean it up.