I think the intent is to show first by counterexample that, no, the syntax is quite readable for what it's trying to represent. After showing that the syntax isn't the problem they then show that the language semantics are indeed what make it complicated, but you can only get away from that by throwing away the best features of Rust.

Basically they're criticizing, in a roundabout way, people who criticize Rust for it's syntax by showing that such people don't actually understand Rust.

It has a sarcastic tone, but the point is to show by demonstration that the ugliness is not purely in the syntax, but because Rust actually exposes a lot of knobs to the programmer.