> Zig where I used to use C/Rust (but admittedly I spent the least time here).

I really don't understand how that fit with the “I want something that allows me to focus my mental facilities on the complexities of the actual problem domain”.

For low-level stuff, Rust allows to offload the cognitive load of maintaining the ownership requirements to the machine. On the opposite, Zig is exactly like C as it forces you to think about it all the time or you just shoot yourself in the foot at the first opportunity…

For stuff that can be done with managed languages, then absolutely, the GC allows to completely ignore that aspect, at the cost of some performance you don't always care about because how fast the modern hardware is.