Although the code generated might be similar, it's not a "distinction without a difference" because the language doesn't provide the same tools for interacting

Although the code generated might be similar, it's not a "distinction without a difference" because the language doesn't provide the same tools for interacting with panics as say C++ does with exceptions. There is no "try catch" for panics, you either catch them at the thread boundary or catch them with catch_unwind. Everything in the std lib is built with Result for errors that can be handled, not panic. Programming is hard, but that doesn't mean that certain language design choices don't have meaningful impact on what type of code becomes easier/harder to write. Other people are saying similar things, and I ask you listen to what they're saying, rather than talking about people being "traumatized" by a programming construct.