I think "worse is better" vs. "better is better" is best understood as a continuum rather than a black-and-white dichotomy. The popular impression of Rust is indeed better-is-better as you say, but many folks coming from Haskell think of Rust as a worse-is-better language, as it has control flow, impurity, strictness, no higher-kinded types, method notation, object types (as opposed to first-class existentials), curly brackets, etc. The truth is that they're both right: Rust is pragmatic where it needed to be and novel where it needed to be.

I think"worse is better" vs. "better is better" is fundamentally business-driven: does your product deliver value through compatibility/familiarity or by doing things in a technically better way than the competition? Both have been successful, and choosing the right one is basically a question of business judgment.