>I guess the simplest explanation is that software is growing larger,
>and in the end we should be expecting to adding new packages faster than
>removing dead ones.  Add to that the grotesque inefficiency of modern
>programming languages such as Go and Rust.

Wouldn’t initiatives like rust-dev[0] help with that? I know that Debian is 
also packaging Rust this way[1].

[0]: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Rust/rust-dev
[1]: https://wiki.debian.org/Rust

Hoël