Completely agree. And this isn't even controversial. The controversy is about whether to make rewrites, including it in the Linux Kernel and so forth.
But for greenfield projects in systems languages? First of all, that niche is tiny. There may be sub-niches where availability of some specialist library makes it harder to use Rust than C++, but I'd argue that if some library or ecosystem is that important, your project isn't completely green field. An Unreal game isn't a greenfield project even if I start now because the Engine is a massive piece of C++ you have to live with.
For anything this niche of "green field enough", I'd go with Rust even if I had a whole team consisting to 100% of experienced C++ developers. And I wouldn't even sweat the decision.
But for greenfield projects in systems languages? First of all, that niche is tiny. There may be sub-niches where availability of some specialist library makes it harder to use Rust than C++, but I'd argue that if some library or ecosystem is that important, your project isn't completely green field. An Unreal game isn't a greenfield project even if I start now because the Engine is a massive piece of C++ you have to live with.
For anything this niche of "green field enough", I'd go with Rust even if I had a whole team consisting to 100% of experienced C++ developers. And I wouldn't even sweat the decision.