Does the Rust wrap/unwrap come with any runtime cost?

I don't it sucks at all because implementing any type class (or trait, or interface), then if your new implementation is better (more efficient in time or memory) then you should propose to swap the old with the new at its original source location (i.e, create a merge request somewhere). If your implementation has a different output then you should consider whether this thing should actually be a type class at all (as it seems to be arbitrary). Or if your implementation is for a more specific case of the type, then making it a newtype is not only the practical thing to do, but it should actually be a new type.