proposal:

allow overloading on operator. just as just about every other operator can
be overloaded.

why?

to allow the creation of smart reference classes, by analogy to smart pointer
classes.

for example, if you want to implement reference counted pointers you
need to overload operator->

and if you want to implement reference counted references you
need to overload operator.

so rules for overloading operator. would be analogous to the rules for
overloading operator->

????