> I think it’s a good compromise, because the consequences of forgetting it are way harsher.

And easier to detect. Knowing that no operation is carried out unless you can see it is important to many who do low-level programming.

But there is no one right answer. Differences between programming languages, including those between Zig and Rust, are mostly about people's personal preferences because language designers rarely make choices that are universally inferior than others. When they differ, it's because both sides are reasonable and have their proponents.