It (this particular example, of function pointer syntax) is absolutely just incidental complexity, though. E.G. Haskell

(a -> b) -> c -> d

becomes C

D (*f(B (*)(A)))(C)

and it's no surprise that the former is considered much less fancy than the latter.

Of course it's not common — because the language makes it painful :) The causation is the other way around. We've seen in plenty of languages that if first-class functions are ergonomic to use then people use them all over the place.