I don’t think there was any urgency attached to this pull request until it blew up on social media. The next Bitcoin Core release is planned for October. Whether the change were to get merged in May or in August, it wouldn’t come out before October.

The sense of urgency was generated by opponents claiming that immediate action was necessary to save Bitcoin.

I would argue that the sentiment "it was rushed" is misleading and incorrect. As described, this was discussed on the mailing list, and opening a PR doesn't mean the code is merged or ready. There's also been a misconception that opening a PR means the code is already integrated and the change guaranteed.