But sand is not dust,
************************
I don’t care , those tires are all wrong for anything but hard packed “earth” ,, agree dust ¬= sand ,, but sand can be mighty slippery ,, a better wheel would be a TRACK ,, or a tall narrow wheel that would bite down through the surface dust/dirt/loose crap and get to something solid.
The engineers made a decision to “float” the rover and accept poor traction in return for kicking up less dust/dirt into the atmosphere and instruments.
Sand is slippery because there are no “fines” mixed in, thus little friction between the sand particles.
Kind of like dry beach sand that has been disturbed after it dried out.
You have to give them a break, they really had nothing to base their design on in terms of soil/surface conditions, and this thing is wandering and finding lots of different conditions.
And it takes a long time between instruction and reaction too.