a "translator" which can introduce its own bugs
Valid only for cheaspskates and stressers, I have found ZERO bugs in full fledged Keil compiler/linker, after, at least, a decade of use. If you go out and buy a $100 compiler, I would suspect you would find some. Yes, I have found errors in the SFR declarations, would that rely to using C - of course not. Also, problems with the optimizer has been reported, most due to misunderstandings, some valid, but, again, that is 'stressing the tools', and if it works without optimization, what is your problem. Blaming the optimizer for your inability to write assembler does not make sense and, if some code is critical, you SHOULD use assembler, not some stupid optimizer. Some consider it a bug that the Keil IDE has a problem linking with the SILabs debugger, I feel sooooo sorry for them, they actually have to load a debugger, not just type 'debug' OH what terrible issue.

Erik