BetterC and TypeInfo Question

[jmh530 via Digitalmars-d-learn]

I should preface this by saying I don't really have a good sense 
of how either BetterC or the D runtime work.

The recent BetterC thread made me wonder about TypeInfo in the D 
runtime. My (surface level) understanding is that this is what 
makes typeid work at run time.

I was looking through the C++ standard library headers and 
noticed <typeinfo> that has a typeid also. One difference with D 
is that it is opt-in as there is some cost using it.

I suppose I'm wondering what other differences there are. Could 
TypeInfo be made optional in D, like it is in C++?