Copy is essentially operator overloading (it is a simplified, restricted, moves-or-doesn't overloading of the assignment operator), which is always implemented

Copy is essentially operator overloading (it is a simplified, restricted, moves-or-doesn't overloading of the assignment operator), which is always implemented through traits. I agree that operator overloading complects the behavior of built in syntax with the polymorphism system, but the alternative seems worse to me. However, I don't think binding and use of a variable is 'complected' with its lifecycle. These are semantically significant concepts that I like Rust helping me manage, irrespective of their impact on machine memory. Also, I should be clear that I do web development professionally and I think the best practices Rust encourages are absolutely applicable to that space, and general application development. That those practices are also high performance in Rust is almost incidental.