[lmm]

> "Talking it out" isn't an option when you're dealing with code that's older than last week, let alone code written by developers that you've never met - you can't talk it out retroactively.

Omitting dots and parens is so superficial that you could change the code purely mechanically to your preferred style. Just like running an autoformatter on someone's code before reading it because you don't like their indentation style.