given/when, and smartmatch are syntactic sugar for other constructs. You named one alternative, and there are others including dispatch tables with coderefs. given/when/smartmatch weren't re-labeled "experimental" only because they will probably change. The re-labeling is also because their current condition is a little broken, and a little odd, which prevents them from being fully embraced. I'd say that for the time being there are several good reasons to avoid them.