My opinion so far is that people want to write Java using Rust, or they want to write C++ using Rust, and they have a hard time. You can’t really just go write a program architected the way you do in those other languages. It’s not “C++ with a borrow checker”.
So I’d say it’s “worse” than “you have to memorize the borrow checker”. Its “you have to learn how to write programs in Rust”.