Yeah, this is irritating... one workaround for this is to do:

(in the context of walking a tree...):

    fn get_depth(root_opt: &Option<Box<TreeNode>>) -> usize {
        let root = match root_opt {
            Some(root) => root,
            None => return 0;
        };

        1 + std::cmp::max(get_depth(root.borrow().left), get_depth(root.borrow().right))
    }