Hi, this may just be a brain fart as I'm no dev and am not acquainted with json/the nested structures you are talking about, but it strikes me that [list store] could be used to make a more flexible [value] type object, by using the fact you can send it the [send $0/foo( message to request the list... with an abstraction based on this you could have at least have arbitrary list-based variables that you could dynamically get & set. Just mentioning it in case it sparks anything off for anyone, please disregard if not! 

Cheers, Sam.