>. I do not see how any of the modern languages of the 21th century would be even remotely suitable to write an OS kernel with.
Not true. You just have to be smart enough to implement the stack and structure properly. Have a look at some of the experimental operating systems out there. Singularity is especially worth a look.
Yes, and still hasn't solved its performance problems that span all of the OS's functionality. Performance is something we might not care about at a high level, but on a kernel it's a first priority, and a very difficult problem to solve.
Not true. You just have to be smart enough to implement the stack and structure properly. Have a look at some of the experimental operating systems out there. Singularity is especially worth a look.