array operations and ranges

[Manu via Digitalmars-d]

Array operations are super cool, and I'm using ranges (which kinda
look and feel like arrays) more and more these days, but I can't help
but feel like their incompatibility with the standard array operations
is a massive loss.

Let's say I want to assign one range to another: b[] = a[];
It's not clear to me why this should fall down if I want to apply a
lazy operation for instance: b[] = a.map!(e=>e*2)[];
... or something to that effect.

I find that my lazy ranges often end up on the stack, but I can't
assign/initialise directly: float[] a = b.transform[];
Instead I need to: float[] a;  b.transform.copy(a[]);

The fact that they don't mix with array expressions or operators means
as soon as a lazy range finds it wants to enter existing array code,
it needs to be converted to a series of map()'s.

There must be years of thoughts and work on this sort of thing?
It seems arrays and ranges are unnecessarily distanced from
eachother... what are the reasons for this?