I insist that having every function implicitly have a self-reference is bad. Sometimes I want a function's sense of self as being some other object - say a table representing a set of functions. Sorry, but I want control over the names I'm using - and the separation of 'afn, 'fn, and 'rfn gets me that control.
The above just gets worse when I need several nested afn's each with a few dozen fn's that need to recurse on the parent. Being able to select or not select the implicit shadowing of 'self is important to me.
"All processes are impermanent ... All processes are afflicted ... All phenomena are not ‘Self’; when this is seen with knowledge, one is freed from the illusion of affliction. This is the pathway to purity." ^^ ^^ >.<
