What straw man? You made these assertions:

1. Rust is low level

2. Low level details leak through abstractions

3. This creates a difficult trade off for use cases that do not require manipulation of low level constructs

I am making these assertions:

1. Pointers are not particularly "low level"

2. The tradeoffs when pointers are abstracted away are worse

3. It is sad that trained professionals believe that pointers are difficult to understand