Of course you can write some terrible stuff in C++ but typically the only problems I tend to find these days are dealing with C style interfaces which are the ones most likely to need to deal with pointers to buffers (and even worse void pointers).

I am not sure exactly what the bitcoin-qt problem is *but* there is no such problem in the older client (so why not blame Qt rather than C++ itself?).

To offer a parallel criticism I remember years ago when Adaptive Server Anywhere first decided to rewrite their C++ SQL query tool in Java (the reason why I could never actually work out as the C++ worked extremely well). The resulting program was such an embarrassment (queries that used to take seconds taking minutes, exceptions being thrown all the time and memory usage ridiculously high) that they had to include the old C++ program anyway (and I don't think anyone would have seriously tried using the Java app more than once or twice).

So can we agree that "crap can be written in any language" and stop with the language bashing?

I won't dispute that C++ has a large (maybe the largest) learning curve but if you learn it properly then I don't see it being more likely to result in poorer quality code.

In modern C++ one rarely uses plain pointers excepting the case of using them for the purpose of adding extra "optional" function arguments. If you don't know about them please read up on "smart pointers".