Apple's APIs last for years, in some cases decades. In this world, properties like "this object can only have one reference" and "this function can only be called once" become arbitrary constraints on the future.
Think about instances where you've refactored a RefCell to an Rc or a FnOnce to a FnMut, and consider what it would be like if you were unable to make that change because it would break the interface. It would be profoundly limiting.