In the new D release why use free functions instead of properties?

[Dicebot via Digitalmars-d-learn]

On Tuesday, 19 August 2014 at 16:04:15 UTC, Gary Willoughby wrote:
> This kind of makes sense for `dup` because that could be 
> applied across types but what about rehash, byKey, byValue, 
> keys, values, etc of AA's? Surely these will only be used by 
> AA's? Is this more about speed optimisation?

I am pretty sure this is just one of steps for "librarization" of 
AA implementation and minimizing special handling for it in 
compiler. Not that valuable on its own, just one of many small 
steps towards hard goal.