AVR-Chat

This time last year avr-gcc
   >emitted extra RET instructions in some situations. I knew because I was
   >looking at the output. I didn't fret about my project being 55 RET's
   >longer than it needed to be.
  
In a 2343, I implemented a full upc/ean/upc-e/ean-8 barcode decoder. In order to fit the data, I had to overlap the input and output buffers, and overlap the output buffer with stack space.  Code ended up with 7 words free after a lot of scavenging.

That job, on that chip.. I don't think that's possible in c.  

Back to the subject though, any higher level language shields you from the machine, and so assembler has to be the best language for learning the machine.