A type of VLA I would like to see more of in C code however, is variable-length array parameters (void func(int n, int arr[n]);) and array pointers (int (*my_array)[n];).

Compilers can often do some static bounds-checking of such arrays. But because those features had been introduced together with variable-length array stack variables , people have lumped them all together and thus shunned these features that could otherwise have added safety.

BTW, one thing you should never do is use variable-length array declarations and alloca() in the same function. As VLA variables have scope life-time and allocas have function life-time they are not compatible — and allocations could overlap. Yet, not all compilers (/versions) that support both warn when they are used together.