Single ownership and memory not being flat are separate points. And I guess I'm imprecise saying pointers where I mean borrowed values, but my point is that a

Single ownership and memory not being flat are separate points. And I guess I'm imprecise saying pointers where I mean borrowed values, but my point is that a borrow is just a pointer with additional type checking. More formally: C pointers are a complete but unsound formal system, whereas Rust borrows are sound but incomplete. And every time I get in a fight with the borrow checker, it's because I'm doing something unsound, not because the system is incomplete.