> ... some of the more recent complex language features

This isn't recent. The approach that Swift took had this path locked in from the start, the (d)evolution towards ever more spiraling complexity was inevitable from the initial choices.

And this is not 20/20 hindsight, a lot of people, including yours truly, were saying that fron the very start. As an example, take initialization:

2014:

https://blog.metaobject.com/2014/06/remove-features-for-grea...

The swift book has 16 rules and 14 pages just on object initialization. Chris replied in the comments: "the complexity is necessary for <feature we want> and thus simplicity must give way". My reply: "the <feature you want> is incompatible with simplicity and thus must give way".

2020:

called it!

https://blog.metaobject.com/2020/04/swift-initialization-swi...

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Or the syntax:

https://blog.metaobject.com/2020/06/the-curious-case-of-swif...

→ Swift included all of Smalltalk's keyword message syntax as a special case of a special case of the method call syntax.

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Rob Rix:

“Swift is a crescendo of special cases stopping just short of the general; the result is complexity in the semantics, complexity in the behaviour (i.e. bugs), and complexity in use (i.e. workarounds).”

https://www.quora.com/Which-features-overcomplicate-Swift-Wh...

Improving the usability of C libraries in Swift