In 2003 you could have generated C from a DSL, for one. Like yacc and lex had been standard practice (although without security focus) since the 80s.

Or generate C from a safe GP language, eg C targeting Scheme such as Chicken Scheme / Bigloo / Gambit.

People have been shipping software in memory safe languages all this time, since way before stack smashing was popularized in Phrack, after all.