hmm... after finally discovering that Array.to_a doesn't double-array now I'm getting warnings that Array.to_a is being obsoleted (with the unhelpful message: warning: default `to_a' will be obsolete). Aunty google tells me I should now use Array(thing)!

Can I just say (from a purely aesthetic POV):
yuk!

When you use to_a you can just read your code left-to-right eg:

Thing.do_stuff(args).