One word

In a world of qualified only pointers, many unsafe languages become safe.

Take for instance, the possible choices:
pushed * : pointer to <insert type> allocated on the stack
pooled * : pointer to <insert type> allocated on the heap
intern * : pointer to <insert type> local method allocation
extern * : pointer to <insert type> nonlocal method allocation

There are others, like method * and shared *, but they are hard to explain to n00bs.

Without generic one-type-fits-all pointers and the disallowance of casting between pointers, it would become impossible to manipulate instances of user defined classes. And, that's not all; many problems could be caught by a compiler that previously could not be.

Ha! Revel in my genius!

>>11
I'm comparing the typed pointers to the fact that people still write (char *) a in C++ code, instead of the longwinded reinterpret_cast<char *>(a).