Sorry. To clarify, the reason that I don't like saying ${foo} has nothing to do with that syntax. It is in general fine. However for the most part I don't use that syntax in strings. I prefer to say $foo unless I see that the next character is going to cause problems. However in my given case I don't immediately see that the next character will be a problem because it is the leading < which should be fine. Except that I am rewriting the code deeper down. My question really is how can I make the rewriting safer by making sure that there is something safe where the tag used to be so that what the programmer expects to happen actually happens.

-ben