My opinion, then and now, is that C and other languages without memory checks are unsuitable for writing secure code.

I think they can be used to write secure code, but it has to be done carefully, with really thorough checks and unit tests, and a constant awareness of the vulnerabilities.

Everything I've heard about OpenSSL so far, suggests it was done by a bunch of cowboys who don't care about code quality. Those people shouldn't be writing C, but a safer language.