[impulsivepuppet]

I find it hard to believe that vigilance can be opted out of, unless—sarcastically speaking—you leave the company before the lack of vigilance becomes a problem.

I somewhat agree with your take but that "free lunch" is paid by a disciplined use of lifetimes, somewhat contradicting the claim of "removing vigilance and discipline by using Rust's type system/borrow checker". In my worldview, type systems are in fact a compiler-enforced discipline, but I see how productivity can be boosted once problem areas become more visible / less implicit. Problems don't really disappear, they only become easier to scan through.