I did not enjoy the cmake wrapper (catkin) -- and I bloody hate the garbage fire that is the python ecosystem ... someone needs to rebuild this project in rust -- could be a million times more plug and play and also better performance ... does something like that exist?
Sadly I've not seen anything similar in terms of an integrated ecosystem, but I do believe anyone planning on using ROS for a project of significance (i.e. something which will go beyond a prototype) is better served by creating their own version of everything ROS provides.
I was in agreement with you until this. C++ would be better in terms of compatibility. Rust is non-existent in the world of robotics which is mostly dominated by C++ libraries
Rust seems to me a reasonable language for developing the library of functionality that ROS offers -- with distribution and building and component development story all solved by the ecosystem default build mechanism ...