I'd wager the vast majority of Linux users have never encountered a memory safety issue with the Kernel. Memory safety issues are usually rare enough in world class C code that, by the time it reaches end-users, you have to actively go out of your way to exploit it.

Rust built its reputation around the idea that they can crush security bugs by making them impossible. They should be holding themselves to a higher standard than that "in practice" leeway. If a malicious actor can tease Rust into behaving in a way that contradicts its safety guarantees, then it could be serious.

Maybe your corporate policy is to configure Rust to allow zero unsafe code. Some crate you're depending on gets hijacked. It uses the cve-rs to crash your system even though Rust says it's 100% safe code.