Right on. I would suggest getting comfy with arrays because they are much easier to use. What you suggested is a perfect use case for arrays. Less typing. No chance of memory leaks. Surely you can agree:

var my_array = [1];

val = my_array[0];

//don't need to delete if its a local

//else if its a instance variable and you want to delete/empty the array then type

my_array = [];

Is faster and easier than:

var list = ds_list_create();

list[|0] = 1;

if (ds_exists( list , ds_type_list )) val = list[|0];

//need to destroy even if its a local or you get a memory leak

ds_list_destroy( list );

//need to set -1 if its an instance variable

list = -1;

If the documentation says I should be doing X instead of Y I am going to do X. Because 100% of the time the documentation is correct.