Furthermore, programming in Rust has some unique challenges (like the borrow-checker) that make traditional line-for-line or function-for-function re-writes unfavorable. The average Rust re-implementation tends to do more re-architecture than the average $FOOLANG re-implementation, which tends to make them more education.

There's also an aspect that Rust is still seen as "unproven," compared to its rather bold goals and claims. A re-implementation of something existing is a good opportunity to see how well Rust-in-practice manages to approach Rust-in-theory, and in some ways is better for that purpose than a green-field Rust project.

Personally I prefer post-mortem write-ups rather than links to an active code-base, but you take what you can get.

reimplementing is interesting and definitely cool, but what i really want to see is what NEW previously-almost-impossible-to-achieve products/artifacts we can create with these new languages...

I think we’ll definitely see that, but I we’ll see that after people get comfortable with the language, and doing rewrites is one way people get comfortable with a language.

It's also a way to learn more about the thing being reimplemented.