What I worry about is those "thoroughly-vetted libraries" is that the use of those will likely follow a power law distribution in terms of code dependent upon t

What I worry about is those "thoroughly-vetted libraries" is that the use of those will likely follow a power law distribution in terms of code dependent upon them. When that happens, a disproportionately-high amount of code will depend upon those libraries. So when a defect (or vulnerability) shows up in one of them, a disproportionately-high amount of code will become vulnerable. Reducing this unsafe surface area should result in outsized gains overall. I'm not familiar with the unsafe patterns, and to what extent they could be addressed/reduced through Rust language/compiler design, but that'd be one area where research focus might produce even more benefit. The other weak point may be the LLVM itself, which I guess would be sort of a background hum of risk to Rust. Outsider view: not sure of the relative levels of risk in each layer, and to what extent they can be addressed. Can (or will) these unsafe patterns be capable of being addressed by future changes in Rust?