Currently, equalTo() will not compile when comparing Object to another class forcing unnecessary casting. For example:

HttpServletRequest request = (get request);
Object actual = request.getAttribute("SomeAttribute");
assertThat(actual, equalTo((Object) fooInstance));

In this example, the compile will fail unless fooInstance is cast to Object. But this is unnecessary for equals() to work correctly.

If the signature of equalsTo() were:

Matcher<Object> equalTo(Object o)

it could avoid the above problem.