You seem to have missed my point, sounds like you're responding to the first sentence or so.

C wasn't about elegance. It was about cross-machine portability., plus making some PITA tasks an asm level coder had to deal with a bit less error prone and a bit more maintainable. Pointers already existed, as did stack frames (which were a step up from massive blocks of code not broken into functions). A box of electrician's tools, not a box of calligraphy pens. The appropriate tools for the CPUs available at the time.