> There are some clear advantages to using C
>   Local memory allocation is a clear win. This is primarily an accounting
>   problem that is easily done by compiler/linkers and is implemented using
>   exact algorithms.

Interesting.  I would have listed "global register allocation" as a clear
advantage of asm (though perhaps not relevant so much on PICs.)  You can
save a lot of time in speed critical code by having all your important data
in regsiters rather than ram (in a register-rich architecture, anyway) and
RESTRICTING the usage of those registers from general purpose functions.
(I don't really see why a C compiler couldn't do this, if it allowed
global variables to be defined "register" and took that "suggestion"
seriously, but I don't know of any compilers that actually DO that.)

BillW