I was more suggesting that there's a story about how Rust became what it is today, and the active guidance that members of the core team(s) took on to take it there. It's a story I'd like to read, that's all.
The questions you bring up are very good ones, and they're relevant to anyone developing technology like a programming language - be it a FOSS project, a creative tool, whatever. But I think from a literary perspective it wouldn't be the job of the person telling the story to answer them, but for the reader to decide for themselves.
It's usually accurate, but it rarely spurs compelling discussion in my experience. Whether it's inertia or actual pigheadedness, smugly suggesting that they could have "just" rewritten their software in Rust and they wouldn't have their day ruined doesn't invite the best kind of discussion, considering that the people involved are either just coming out of the bad day or tend to underestimate the costs of switching.
The author is presenting one example, and pointing to a Pharo programming competition as the key exhibit. It's a pretty impressive competition, too. Impressive prizes. Impressive competition map and Pac-Man style game.
In fact, if you look around the same blog, you'll find a nice comparison to another competition called Battlesnake: https://smalltalk.tech.blog/2020/03/03/battlesnake-the-compe.... JRMPC seems to be a cut above.
I'd really like someone from the Rust community (steveklabnik?) to write a history of the language/community and what decisions they took to grow. There's social and technical stuff that got people to go out and evangelize, which is half the battle - what they've really succeeded at is getting people to listen.