This is a common sentiment, but it rarely holds up to closer scrutiny (such as measurements...). Swift is both slow to run and very slow to compile. Both compile and runtime come with extremely high variance. Such unpredictability is arguably even worse than just plain slow performance.
Try some JSON benchmarks with Codables in Swift vs serde in Rust. Rust smokes Swift, something like 20x.
Incidentally I've spent considerable effort on this problem, including writing a prototype faster JSON parser in Swift (still about 3x slower than Rust, but a huge speedup over what's there). I couldn't get anyone in the Swift community to care enough to motivate me to finish the work, which is indicative of a deeper problem: Swift just doesn't have "performance culture," the benchmark game results notwithstanding.
I think optionals are a great way of saying: “Hey developer, this value can sometimes be nil; be sloppy or not, your call.”
Any language you pick is an interplay of choices and compromises. No such thing as perfect.