Then you should look into it (or Boost) again. The point is that it was being developed (and tested) for decades and you can't possibly write a better solution. Don't like character handling in strings? Write your own character traits class and plug it in std::string. Heap allocation takes too long? Write a custom allocator and use it with almost any STL lass that needs it.
It is a nicer language (properties, overloaded operators and other nice little things), but Java is a more mature platform, and its toolchain and interoperability of components is exceptional. Besides, C#'s collection classes system is severely retarded compared to Java's. Oh yeah, and Java is now open-source.
Then you should immediately be able to tell what my sig does.
Completely forgot about the IDE. Regardless of how I dislike MS, no other IDE can beat Visual Studio. As for the editor, ViM is The One True Editor.