I agree with you, but I would rephrase it. As a C++-lander, I find it surprising that object allocation is tied to the object's type. IMO, the boxed/unboxed a

I agree with you, but I would rephrase it. As a C++-lander, I find it surprising that object allocation is tied to the object's type. IMO, the boxed/unboxed axis should be orthogonal to the type itself. It should be a property of the object instance, not of the object's type.