I'm far from a Rust pro, but I think the dismissal of alternatives like Polonius seems too shallow. Yes, it is still in the works, but there's nothing fundamentally wrong about the idea of a borrow checker.
This is true both in theory and in practice, as you can write any program with a borrow checker as you can without it.
TFA also dismisses all the advantages of the borrow checker and focuses on a narrow set of pain points of which every Rust developer is already aware. We still prefer those borrowing pain points over what we believe to be the much greater pain inflicted by other languages.
Polonius will not fix the "issues" the author is complaining about, because contrary to his assertion, they are actual fundamental properties of how the Rust ownership/borrowing model is supposed to work, not shortcomings of an insufficiently smart implementation.
This is true both in theory and in practice, as you can write any program with a borrow checker as you can without it.
TFA also dismisses all the advantages of the borrow checker and focuses on a narrow set of pain points of which every Rust developer is already aware. We still prefer those borrowing pain points over what we believe to be the much greater pain inflicted by other languages.