But compiled Objective-C code looks "horrible" to begin with… so I am not sure how well that translates to D.
Just to make it clear: ARC can make more assumptions than manual Objective-C calls to retain/release. So ARC being "surprisingly fast" relative to manual RC might be due to getting rid of Objective-C inefficiencies caused by explicit calls to retain/release rather than ARC being an excellent solution. YMMV.
