It's really not middle of the road. I wrote both Objective-C and C++, and both (C++ templated code aside) are more readable than Rust.
Objective-C in particular was verbose, but the symbols made sense and their meaning could be understood from the context. In Rust you either know what the symbols mean, or you do not understand the code.
> In Rust you either know what the symbols mean, or you do not understand the code.
This is just part of knowing a programming language. Readability to people who don't know a programming language might be considered an interesting property in itself, perhaps especially for cognitive psychology or education, but it has little to do with programming. It's only accidentally related to a concept of 'readability' relevant to software development.
Objective-C in particular was verbose, but the symbols made sense and their meaning could be understood from the context. In Rust you either know what the symbols mean, or you do not understand the code.