DMD is the reference implementation as far as I know, so I don’t think they have the same issue that C and C++ have with regards to needing to have a standard that pleases everyone. I agree that it has an issue positioning itself relative to other languages, but to me D is the good kind of boring. It has most of what you need, there is very little that is surprising in it, if you find yourself needing to do something, probably D has an easy-ish way of doing it.

I don’t know where D fits nowadays and which problem it’s trying to solve.

My experience has been similar - it’s hard to categorize the language.

As a low-level system language like C, C++, Rust, Zig? The garbage collector makes it a hard sell to other people, even though one can opt out of it.

As a higher-level application language like Java and Go? D frequently gives me a “low-level language” feel, but I am not sure why.

As a scripting language? I feel like its type system works against the rapid-prototyping coding style commonly seen in scripts.