Sure. When used they look like normal variables. And when you set them it looks like setting a local variable. This is hiding that what really happens is it's writing through a pointer. And it's modifying the caller's state.

Add to that the unfounded non-orthogonality (like in C++, references are technically the same as pointers, but not syntactically, and not in the type system, leading to combinatorial explosion. And of course the bloated standard library is proof).

Furthermore this approach doesn't work for pointers that point to arrays. Again, Delphi has its own zoo of workarounds that OOP enthusiast will think are so much better -- from dynamic arrays (really weird interactions with reallocations combined with "var" modifier or not), to ObjectLists (not typed) to a version of generics (has its own technical problems). But what I want is the simple and obvious thing (pointer parameters without typedefs) and there's no good reason why we shouldn't have it.