This would be going against the goal of a minimal AST representation to some degree, but considering we spend a relatively large amount of time in Regal scanning nested structures for vars, even with a slight increase in the size of JSON, this would likely be a win. A POC feels warranted!
What I'd want to test is to have Roast add some identifier to any object, array, set or ref which is not ground. We do not need to add anything for values which are ground, as that can just be assumed.