The type inference does mean that you can care less about what specific type you’re working with, and that it is rare that you will need to write types out (except in signatures—the type inference is deliberately only local), but the distinctions are certainly still there, and due to the nature of the language must be.

Really, this is showing one of the more tricky parts of Rust, potentially to balance the claims of excessive bullishness for Rust that I have heard levelled at me! Don’t let it dim your enthusiasm too far; Rust is still very much worth while trying out in practice.