>[shrug] I tend to use mdot whenever there could be an ambiguity, but I don't however *blindly* apply mdot in context in which it can only be a variable reference (e.g. on left-hand-side of assignment, passing variable by reference, macro substitution, etc.)

passing by reference is much fun with field names, try

CREATE CURSOR muh (lax I)
INSERT INTO muh values(1)
DIMENSION lax(1)

?lop(@m.lax)
?lop(@lax)

FUNCTION lop
LPARAMETERS lvx
?lvx
endfunc

At least it errors out and does not work on wrong assumptions ..