1. Version control. If you ask Cargo to make you a new Rust project, and you have git (which, if you're a software developer you almost certainly do) it makes you a Git repository for the new project, with its target directory ignored.
As with formatting you might have very strong opinions about revision control, or you might be subject to a company policy, maybe you must use Bob's Special Version Control Program for all Company Projects. Cargo won't stop you doing that, but if you don't have an opinion you get git which is definitely better than nothing. And if you want to, somebody can teach Cargo about Bob's SVCP and make 'svcp' one of the possible choices in the config for the few people who do care.
2. Hello World. If you ask Cargo for a new Application, the project it gives you prints "Hello, World!" because why not. Rust's boilerplate for such an application isn't very heavy, but like a blank piece of paper is intimidating when writing an essay or novel, it's nice to have something to start from. Step #1 remove the part where it prints "Hello, World!". Step #2 write my actual program. Hey, we're off to a great start already.
This also means you have a correct, valid program to check your tooling. A new Cargo Application is a Hello, World program that will compile, and run, showing that your tools work as intended before you write a single line of Rust. It doesn't have any tests, nor any documentation, but since it's a working program the test infrastructure and doc builder work, the results will just be not very exciting.