> Rust also supports reference counting GC, but that is more _verbose_ to use... It should be _simpler_ to use in my view, similar to Python. The main disadvantage of Rust, in my view, is that it's verbose.

I think there's space for Rust to become more ergonomic, but its goals limit just how far it can go. At the same time I think there's space to take Rust and make a Rust# that goes further on the Swift/Scala end of the spectrum, where things like auto-cloning of references are implemented first, that can consume Rust libraries. From the organizational point of you, you can see it as a mix between nightly and editions. From a user's point of view you can look at it as a mode to make refactoring faster, onbiarding easier and a test bed for language evolution. Not being Rust itself it would also allow for different stability guarantees (you can have breaking changes every year), which also means you can be holder on tryin things out knowing you're not permanently stuck with them. People who care about performance, correctness and reuse can still use Rust. People who would be well served by Swift/Scala, have access to Rust's libraries and toolchain.

> (Also, there is a tendency to add too many features, similar to C++, but that's a secondary concern).

These two quoted sentiments seem contradictory: making Rust less verbose to interact with reference counted values would indeed be adding a feature.