> A lot of problems in Rust seem to involve replacing (smart) pointers with handles. Sometimes you really do want to do that, but it's bad if it's a necessary kludge.

It's not a kludge. It's how you prove to the compiler that you're using those structures safely.

If you aren't used to programming with compiler-enforced safety, you might be tempted to call working with the safety mechanisms a "kludge". But in reality all you're doing is doing things a little differently so that the compiler can ensure safety.