Sure: for instance in LLVM global values (variables, functions) have use-lists, so do constants. That means you can find easily every uses of a function: they are chained in a doubly linked list.
In MLIR, it isn't the case. We use symbol name to refer to other global object, we lose the ability to easily find the uses of these global objects. On the other hand functions are well isolated and you can run Function passes in a multi-threaded fashion safely.