A lot of important programs (like the Linux kernel) don't operate strictly on the exact letter of the standard's UB semantics. They do things like add compiler flags to specify certain behaviors, or assume implementation details.
If you think dealing with undefined behavior is easy and you assume that people have verified that their software triggers no undefined behavior at runtime is fair game, then you should grant that assumption in favor of Rust developers having done the same with their panics, because avoiding panics is child's play in comparison to avoiding UB.
I don't know what it is about panics that triggers some mania in people. UB does not interrupt the program and therefore allows memory corrupt and complete takeover of a program and the entire system as a consequence. C developers are like "this is fine", while sitting in a house that is burning down.
There used to be a pretty blatant hibernation bug with AMD GPUs on Linux that essentially crashes your desktop session upon turning your computer on from hibernation. I've also had a wifi driver segfault on login that forcibly logged you out so you couldn't login like 9 years ago. C doesn't magically fix these problems by not having an explicit concept of panics. You still need to write software that is correct and doesn't crash before you push an update.
There is no meaningful difference between a correctness bug and a panic triggering condition with the exception that the panic forces you to acknowledge the error during development, meaning it is more likely that the correctness bug gets caught in the first place.
What I said was that panics aren't always appropriate and the context to determine this doesn't exist at the language level.
I didn't say managing UB was easy and in fact I've argued diagnosing it is impossible directly with members of both language committees. I didn't say panics are never appropriate. They usually are appropriate. I didn't say I don't use rust because X, Y, Z. I write rust. Etc.
There is no meaningful difference between a correctness bug and a panic triggering condition with the exception that the panic forces you to acknowledge the error during development, meaning it is more likely that the correctness bug gets caught in the first place.