Combined with the heat of combustion, a smaller heat capacity results in higher temperature. H
2O stores much heat, CO
2 less, CO even less.
As one goes to such temperatures, CO becomes predominant over CO
2, the heat of formation of the products accordingly smaller, and then the heat of formation of the fuel gets more important.
In the early days of rocketry, people tried things like N≡C-C≡C-C≡N, but they soon realized it had clear drawbacks
and didn't bring performance neither, because light product molecules are equally important there.