I agree with an overall thrust of “C++ is overcomplicated and has many moving parts and a lot of implicit stuff happening in the background that makes it difficult to understand”. But I do want to briefly note that Lisp environments have macro expansion steppers for a reason too.

Classical Lisp 1.5 yeah, modern Lisps not so much, hence why there are famous publications like Lisp In Small Pieces.

Only if you mean K&R C or the early C89/90 compilers, before the extension explosion, newer language standards, and modern ISAs.