> I would have thought of the Linux kernel first and foremost. It's a truly massive architecture, built by a huge number of developers in a distributed fashion, with many intricate and highly optimized parts, impressive concurrency, scaling from very small machines to the biggest machines on the planet.

This is what the Linux kernel achieved, and when it started C was definitely the right choice for its (primary) implementation language. That doesn't mean C made the job easier, or that if Linux started today it would follow the same trajectory.

I would say Linux succeeds and has good abstractions due to strong discipline, in spite of what C provides it.