[bug #61710] [me] $v and $V are in the wrong namespace

[Dave]

Follow-up Comment #5, bug #61710 (project groff):

Yeah, there's a delicate balancing act between implementing a good design and
preserving historical functionality and design, the latter two sometimes being
at odds with each other, as you note.

On the one hand, I would hate to see $v and $V -- which, despite their
misnamings, have been long documented in groff -- stop working as they always
have.  I would suggest that any replacement mechanism work on top of those two
registers, so that pre-2022 -me documents can continue to exist in blissful
ignorance of this newer mechanism and fiddle with $v and $V as they always
have.

On the other hand, a case could be made that by the time groff came along, -me
use was already fading well behind its more popular cousins, and thus, for
-me, compatibility with pre-groff implementations is far more important than
post-groff ones.  But I have no data to support or refute this conjecture. 
(Back compatibility on this, or lack thereof, doesn't concern me personally: I
follow -me changes pretty closely and can easily adapt to any changes made
here.)

But I sort of feel this is an important question to answer first, because
deciding to preserve historical $v/$V behavior may influence what can feasibly
be built on top of it.  How important do you think it is to preserve the
functionality of existing documents that set $v and/or $V?

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