Re point #1, the idea is to avoid, say:

if ($thing->position->x == 0 and $thing->position->y == 0) {
   ...;
}
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... which calls $thing->position twice, with something like this:

my $pos = $thing->position;
if ($pos->x == 0 and $pos->y == 0) {
   ...;
}
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... which only calls it once.