Yes, there are some backwards compatibility artifacts in the language. I like how verbose it is, little room for ambiguity when sharing code with lesser-experienced programmers. C# is efficient, but a bit cryptic for people not well-versed on c-style languages. Also, curly braces.
I think curly braces are perfectly clear, to me the big problem with C-derived languages is the use of cryptic Boolean operators. The SQL-style "And", "Or" and "Not" Boolean operators are far more legible than "||", "&&" and the easy-to-miss "!".
