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I assumed it was a workaround for some title-formatting rule that HN has, given that the original article uses +

Then why not use word "plus" instead? "Proving that 1 plus 1 = 2 in Rust" is a more suitable title that does not use symbol +.

AIUI, it was not the submitter who rewrote the title; HN did it automatically.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14944003 for another submission that had this issue.