Amiga Basic still seems to me like the pinnacle of the basic language. Line numbers were optional, structured programming with loops and true functions, a graphics library... but still firmly BASIC. Not bits of code embedded in a UX editor, not some compiler-based C wannabee...
Having come from an 8-bit micro with ROM BASIC to the Amiga 1000 in 1985, I too was excited when I read about AmigaBASIC. It really seemed next gen. Unfortunately, once I started actually trying to do interesting things with it, I found it was surprisingly slow compared my 8-bit micro's ROM BASIC.
Of course even though the 8-bit was only running at ~1Mhz compared to the Amiga's ~7Mhz, the 8-bit's ROM BASIC was written in hand-coded assembler (and by some really good programmers, including BillG himself (in the case of the Radio Shack Color Computer I used)). I think AmigaBASIC must have been written in C and designed with portability in mind.
I think "C wannabe" is a complaint about some modern BASICs trying to be too much like C.
Dartmouth BASIC and timesharing were remarkable achievements: a simplified version of Fortran that could be learned in an afternoon but could be used for a wide variety of programs, including games; a fast, interactive compiler; and efficient resource usage and multiplexing that enabled a single machine to be shared by dozens (?) of interactive users. BASIC was also simple enough that it could be implemented compactly and efficiently on 8-bit microcomputers, while retaining its ease of learning for beginners and non-experts. And you could still write/run games with it.
And could be used as systems programming language on 8 and 16 bit home computers, long before C got famous outside UNIX, while being safer at it.
So there is nothing like wanting to be like C, when its mainstream adoption predates C.
Actually I am quite thankful to have learnt systems programming on 8 and 16 bit systems, with BASIC and Pascal variations, macro Assemblers, exactly long before C's mainstream adoption, because I am not tainted with the idea before C there was nothing else, as it eventually became a common myth.
I still see Forth far more advanced than Basic and C+Unix it's a bit meh.
Being orthogonal with pipes it's cool, but Forth did that better since day 1 and without even a wordlist.
On Pascal, good for DOS, and maybe the Classic Mac, but even under Unix there were really good underused platforms, like TCL/Tk +SQLite. More crude than VB, for sure; but, seriously, most of the time a quick tool in that language would cover the 90% of the needs of any corporation.
