I can see the argument for having a special symbol for this - but that is not what's happening here. The underscore is still a perfectly valid variable name and

I can see the argument for having a special symbol for this - but that is not what's happening here. The underscore is still a perfectly valid variable name and is used as such, only it behaves different from every other variable name. If it's supposed to be a special symbol don't make it a valid variable name.