Obviously it's a skill issue but don't you ever make mistakes? If Rust prevents some bugs and makes you more productive, what is not to like? It's a new language and takes time to learn but the benefits seem to outweigh the downsides now and certainly in the long run (compared to C at least).

Maybe Torvalds didn't give in to public opinion but made an informed choice?

The crates are a bit of a problem and I think Rust is a bit overhyped for high-level problems (it still requires manual memory management after all) but those are not principal roadblockers, especially in the kernel.