For many users of AOT compiled languages, the ergonomic factor is being able to enjoy fast builds, without getting a compiler rig.
Turbo Pascal 7, which was already relatively complex, was already compiling several thousand lines per minute on a single core 4Mhz computer bounded to 640KB.
More modern examples with complexer type systems, are languages like Delphi, FreePascal, Ada/SPARK, D, F# via .NET AOT, OCaml.
So yeah cargo is nice, but not if I have to build everything from scratch, Rust isn't a scripting language.
For comparison all rust projects uses cargo.
The ergonomic value of that is something you simply can not overstate.