>2)
>
>   #($a $b $c $d $e) asString
>
>yields:
>
>   '($a $b $c $d $e)'
>
>I think it should really yield 'abcde'.

I used to think so as well, until I realized that the principal use 
of asString was not so much for conversion per se, but for 
facilitating printing and reporting, such as with Transcript>>#show: 
or with a variation of #printOn:.  For these purposes, the "old" 
answer is really more appropriate, as an array of characters is NOT 
the same as a string.  The difficult is the overloading of the 
meanings for asString.

What is more, not all forms of:

	anArray asString

properly coerce to a string as described.  For example:

	#(true 1 0 $a #stuff 'more stuff') asString

to me should answer

	'#(true 1 0 $a #stuff 'more stuff')'

and not

	'true10$a#stuff''more stuff'''

or an error.

Particularly since there is an idiom for producing the desired string 
in the special case of a homogenous array of Character:

	String streamContents: [:s | anArray do: [:ch | s nextPut: ch]]

I think that the present situation is probably better than special 
casing homogenous arrays of chars, given the overloading of #asString.