I think you’re missing what the essence of “worse is better” means. It’s about the complexity of provided solutions, not generic “badness” or undone work. This

I think you’re missing what the essence of “worse is better” means. It’s about the complexity of provided solutions, not generic “badness” or undone work. This is explained well in the original “worse is better” paper (lisp vs C). Even if rust lacks a formal spec and ports to multiple platforms, it is unarguably more complex than C and is an example of “MIT” engineering. Both Rust and Zig pursue the “right thing” whereas C pursued the simplest workable thing, thus increasing its virality.