Correct. Backwards compatibility is both its biggest asset and its bigger problem.
In syntax alone, you can check what Herb Sutter is doing with cppfront. Specifically, the wiki page on the postfix operators is quite enlightening. It shows some interesting examples of how by making everything a postfix operator you drop the need of ->
and the duality of pre/post increment and decrement operators.
Yes. There is already an answer with many votes saying so, but I'll add myself to the list.
I don't have to like all the language, and not even all of the standard library. I learnt C++ with the Qt library, and I still do 99% of my development using Qt because it's the kind of software that I like to write the most. I can choose the parts that I like the most about the full C++ ecosystem, like most people do (you would have to see how different game development is, for example).
I'm also learning Rust, and I see nothing wrong with it. It's just that I see C++ better for the kind of stuff that I need to write (at this time at least).