While I appreciate 2 hawt's tale of what happens when you fly a "real" C kite, it is just not a huge deal. I'm not blind to the fact that C kites power through turns and loops, but it does not mean they are fire breathing dragons.
Yes, kite looping has brought a new dimension to a kiters ability to get thrown about, that is for sure, so I get that, but a C kite does not automatically mean a beating, by any means.
Back in the "old days" if you were not an idiot and you (according to instruction) launched your kite unhooked, you knew the power of your kite the second that your partner let it go. If you could not hold the kite at launch and pull the bar down and hook the loop, then you were over powered and did not go out on that kite, in that wind.
Certeza- If you had launched the Blacktip the way we used to, you would never have even moved it up to zenith before your partner grabbed it, and you chose to a different size for the day.

I weigh 175 pounds and I owned:

Windwing Outrage 17M C kite (still in my garage Bill.!)
Slingshot Machine 17.5M C kite
Flexifoil Strike 9M, 11M, 13M, 15M, 17M C kites
Slingshot Octane 12M, 14M, 16M C kites
Flexifoil Blade 4.9, 6.5, 8.3, 10M non sheetable foils.
Mosquito Brand Foil (massive and powerful)
Ozone Frenzy 9.5M and the bigger one.

Flown a buddy's:

Machine 20.5M and 25M C kites
2003 Slingshot Fuel 19M C kite
Naish Boxxer 19M C kite
Wipika Inferno two line inflatable (big and hard to manage) C kite
Advance 14M non sheetable foil.
Peter Lynn Bomba 17M
Peter Lynn Phantom 19M

Only got thrown seriously once, and that was with the Strike 9M.
Point is, these tales of Braveheart kiting are nice to scare your wife if you don't want to teach her to kite, but if you used your head and followed instructions, you were able to manage relatively safely.
Kites are way more safe now, but that just allows for more people to kite now, who would have never gotten past the early paying attention phase, back in the earlier days.
I'm glad that kites are safer now, but the fear thing was addressed several posts ago and it has become a marketing tool for Slingshot (and others) to sell kites to strong young men.

OnB:
Pump that baby up and take it for a spin! Pics on here or it didn't happen...

Last time I looked, half the nipples needed glue applied to them.
I gave one of the strut bladders to a buddy a couple years ago and looked the whole thing over.
It is a dead soldier, but my wife wants to use the ripstop to make something she has in mind.
That Outrage was built like a tank, same with the Strike kites.
I just looked at it again, it is the same gold and red colors as in your pic above, but the opposite color positions.
It went upwind better than the Strike 17M, but was still a chore, at my size.
One of my crazy friends just fixed all the nipples in the Strike 15M C kite I gave him.
He plans to bring it to his girlfriend's house in San Diego and fly it when he stays out there.
Hey!!..is that my old board PINKY?

I agree with what you are saying for the most part, but IMO you are not fully acknowledging the inability of the old C-kites to absorb gusts. Not all of us are lucky enough to ride in nice consistent ocean winds. Up here in the Rockies it is a completely different story. At the time, I was 210lbs. At that weight and 6000ft elevation, anything less than 14M kite was just not realistic. With those old kites we could launch in a nice even 15kts which was perfectly manageable, then suddenly I'd get caught by a 30kts gust and I was going for a ride and there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it. If I tried going out in lower winds I could get the kite in the air, but not easily get on top of the water. Any conditions "suitable" for riding and my arms and back would be shot by day's end.

Sure a good rider would've had an easier time, but my only choice as a beginner was to deal with it or give up the sport. I don't think the newer tech has just made it safer, it has made it MUCH less physically demanding. It isn't just that crashes were worse on the old kites, simply flying them was a chore relative to the new ones. When I got back into the sport a couple months ago, I was literally amazed at how far the gear has come in just 7 years.

I ride in lake wind 90% or more, not in consistent ocean winds, so I understand gusty.
Our lakes are also surrounded by limestone rock, like giant rock bathtubs, so mistakes get bloody.
I acknowledge the old C kites sheeting range, it was about eight to ten inches on the depower rope, and I do understand that it was more difficult than the kites we have today.
It is one of the reasons, I have a hard time buying into the hard guy pitch when somebody is trying to make a Fuel or whatever sound all hardcore.
As far as weight goes, my buddy I refer to, who taught me to kite, weighs 265 pounds.
This is why you see big kites ranging from 15M-25M in size on the list of C kites I've flown.
He put me on huge kites all the time when I was starting, most of the time it was all he had and all I had to learn on.
He did not seem to understand fully the difference my 90 pounds less body weight made, and he put me on kites that literally took me straight up into the air the first several times he handed me a foil, I had to let go or I would have just kept going, and flown away, the second time he handed me a foil, he had to pull me back down by my feet, as I levitated.
I was there seven years ago, when you tried the first time, and I learned much more slowly than I would have on the new gear, so I understand the challenges you faced then.
My point was, that the way I was taught, was that you never launched a kite hooked in.
If you could not hold a kite unhooked to start with, then you either changed your weight to strength ratio or you didn't learn to kiteboard, we had a couple guys who could not pull their own weight enough to get hooked in and out easily enough and they were denied lesson three. My buddy still does not ride with a donkey dick and he still launches unhooked. He just shakes his head if somebody cannot pull their bar down and hook in full power. He says that's how the idiots get killed, going out over powered, with no way to control a fully powered kite.
I don't fully agree with him anymore, because I do acknowledge and understand that the kites and safety systems have changed a lot, but that is what he still preaches.

Yeah, totally understandable from my perspective and it probably wouldn't saved me getting injured. However, I would say that in general the modern kites depower so easily that launching hooked in isn't really a problem. OTOH, my wife is only 100lbs and with any larger kite even letting go of the bar she'll get dragged a bit, but it won't take her vertical. Some of these newer kites will just hang if you release the bar hooked in too. My old Blacktip, there was no letting go of the bar when hooked in. The only two outcomes if I let go were 1) instant tomahawk 2) get dragged for 50 yards until the kite clips the ground.

That was the most amazing thing for me when I started again. I could crash and completely lose the bar and that kite would usually still be hanging high in the sky between 10 and 2-o'clock. Even if it was headed down it was so de-powered that tomahawks were rare and I could almost always reach up and guide it back with one hand. Honestly I don't know if I would've gotten back into the sport without the modern tech.

I asked Andy Yates about this, and he was super nice and gave me an answer right away. Here's what he has to say:

"Hey man,

I use a 5th line because in my opinion, the kite handles so much better. Lighter bar pressure, easier to handle pass. Although the differences are subtle, the advantages of the extra line far outweigh the extra 30 seconds you need to connect it. Then there's the matter of relaunching a 4 line kite in light winds, which is difficult. It's personal preference really and those who like 4 lines on a c are entitled to their opinion, however I think people are often too caught up in the luring ease of 4 line set up to see that a kite is just so much better with 5 lines. Cheers, Andy Yates"

Hope this answers the original question a little bit Oldnbroken