It’s a clear-minded and deliberate approach to reconciling principle with pragmatic utility. We can debate whether it’s the best approach, but it isn’t like… logically inconsistent, surprising, or lacking in self awareness.
Maybe in that sense there's an "artificial" challenge involved, but it's artificial in the sense of being deliberate rather than merely arbitrary or absurd.
Anyway, I have great hopes for effect system as a way to approach this in a principled way. I really like what Ocaml is currently doing with concurrency. It’s clear to me that there is great value to unlock here.