Requiring certain classes of drivers, for example, to be written in Rust could be great for maintainers. The person who submits the code has to do more work up

Requiring certain classes of drivers, for example, to be written in Rust could be great for maintainers. The person who submits the code has to do more work up front to satisfy the Rust compiler that there are no ownership issues, data races, etc. Maintainers have less work to do because, assuming the code compiles and does not use unsafe blocks, they can be confident the invariants promised by Rust hold. You have moved work from maintainers to submitters. (But you have also given submitters a way to get quicker, automated feedback on their work.)