Just go ahead and write a very basic working kernel in rust.

I don’t get this stance, really. If I want to write a driver in Rust I should start by creating a completely new Kernel and see if it gains momentum? The idea of allowing Rust in kernel drivers is to attract new blood to the project, not to intentionally divert it to a dummy project.

Rust is sufficiently different that you cannot expect C developers to learn rust to the level they have mastered C

If you watch the video, no one asked anything from the C developers other than documentation. They just want to know how to correctly make the Rust bindings.

Note that Rust is not replacing C code in the Kernel, just an added option to writing drivers.