Rust isn't "a comparatively bad starting position." Those obstacles I listed are not just cases of "d'oh, if only we had thought of this earlier." They're conscious, intentional design choices to trade off a general monadic interface (and other similar designs) for real benefits in Rust's domain.
The people who made these choices, and the people who "exalt" them, thus cannot fairly be described as "just don't see the big picture," "don't care," or "not realizing it's contradictory." And until someone has figured out a way to combine a general monadic interface (or more likely, some other method for orchestrating continuations) with Rust-like zero-cost abstractions, these features continue to be "cool" "in their own right." :)
The people who made these choices, and the people who "exalt" them, thus cannot fairly be described as "just don't see the big picture," "don't care," or "not realizing it's contradictory." And until someone has figured out a way to combine a general monadic interface (or more likely, some other method for orchestrating continuations) with Rust-like zero-cost abstractions, these features continue to be "cool" "in their own right." :)