Great point. I used to use C++ a lot on Nintendo video games, government contracting, etc. I always used a subset. Three of my favorite current languages are Haskell, Common Lisp, Scala - and I use small subsets of those languages also. I think it makes sense to look at complex languages filtered by what your needs are and decide on a set of features you really need. For me, this makes my code easier for me to read and modify in the future.
It's widely noted that this "select what you want out of the language" works best if you're working by yourself or in a very small team, with no inclusion of third-party code, or no such code that doesn't conform to your restrictions.
It really is best if the language doesn't include the kitchen sink in the first place, if you want the code to be clean in the most general circumstances.
