A similar thing happened with C++: The fact that it had a relatively high complexity of interacting features (already 30+ years ago) that you could use to do smart things, did attract smart people with a high tolerance for complexity. And with such an audience, complexity tends to expand up to the limits of tolerance (or even a little beyond).

Rust had a better start, not the least because it wasn’t designed on top of an existing language like C++ was, but who knows what it will look like in 30 years.