Because it's a complicated language for building extremely low level things, when you have no other choice. IMO it's not the right tool for high level stuff (even though it does have some stuff which higher level languages should probably borrow).
The only other language that directly competes with Rust IMO is C++, which is equally full of symbol soup.
I thought that for a long time. But as time passes and I spend more time in languages like Typescript (Semi-Type Script more accurately) and Swift the more I yearn for Rust.
It is not the right tool for scripting, true.
It's also good to remind people that these things were borrowed by Rust from other languages too. Primarily the ML family of languages.
IMO there's still need for a higher level Rust where you don't need that last 20% of the performance and control.
Some people say that OCaml is the high level rust, but I think it's got a lot of gaps which rust doesn't.
Nice language otherwise.
My opinion is that in Rust you have to make decisions on certain things which are take n for you by the garbage collector in other languages.
Should you store a reference or value in your struct? You can't just change it without modifying other places. I understand that this gives you the control to get the final 20% of performance in certain places but it's still lower level than other languages.
You could say just spam Arc everywhere and forget about references, but that itself is a low level decision that you make.