Views and passed variable scopes

I did too think of the view-within-a-view scenario, but it's the same thing - you can pass those variables to it on the spot.

The current behavior can be handy, of course (otherwise it wouldn't exist), but if it does remain as an optional feature then it has to really be optional all the way. If I don't turn it on, I wouldn't expect any variables to be cached behind the scenes just so they can be later reset by default.

Yup, that's how it's implemented. after the data is extracted to the view, the class' data property is reset to an empty array by default.

I guess you've misread my post - I'm saying it should NOT be implemented that way.
There's no point in populating a class property if you're going to reset its value in the very same method call.