I wonder if that's a discovery issue. Having used rust for years the quick answer would be 'reqwest', but I guess there's not really any way someone would know that just jumping into the language.
If I had infinite time on my hands it would be a fun exercise to try to improve on it.
Searching "Http request in rust" for me yields the the rust cookbook on the first result, which is using reqwest! (https://rust-lang-nursery.github.io/rust-cookbook/web/client...)
Regardless I agree that crates.io could have some more features but I am not sure how useful I would find a recommendation engine.
Requests is currently #6 in its Web programming > HTTP client category[0]. The download counts, number of contributors, version history, and dependent crates is also prominently displayed.