C++11 is a better language than C++98 (C++03 is mainly a bug fix for '98), but I know what you mean.
Related to what Percy said, the STL is really the core of C++. For a lot of projects and from working with other teams you would be surprised how much work is actually done just by using the STL, and not any object-oriented or C-language features. A lot of professional code I've seen (game graphics and game physics) in C++ barely uses the object oriented features.
C++ really becomes a monster though when you combine features from the different paradigms it supports (i.e. functional or generic stuff with object-oriented stuff)
I really like C, because it's clean and you really can know the whole language.
Edited by Son Goku, : No reason given.