If you don’t want the feature that’s fine, don’t vote for it. But I’ve used bound variables on pattern matches in Scala and it always made for more concise, readable code.
Point 2 is a perfect example showing why Kotlin is better, and what I mean by “less fluff”. Type inference, smoother syntax, and so forth makes the code is easier to read, write, and debug. It’s a huge advantage over Java.
Suggestion 3 does not help. Indentation is shorthand for “here is a new multiline scope”. By collapsing the visual marker the code is more dense and harder to read. Any Kotklin reformatter will put the newlines right back where they should be.