>>If you could pass property by reference than you would be able to "disconnect" property from the object because you would be able to reference it directly. Can you call it a property after that?
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>Why is a local variable to a procedure any different than a property to object? Both describe the state of the environmet.

The local variable is scoped to the procedure but can be referenced by it's name as long as it's in the scope. The property doesn't exist by itself w/o object. You cannot reference the property by just it's name because w/o object it belongs to the name of the property is meaningless.