A minor point: I'm not sure I follow your Rationale for the
alternative point of view:

> An alternative naming convention for the decomposition operation
> unlist is list->values, which is more symmetric with respect to its
> inverse operation values->list.

I'm not sure what VALUES->LIST is supposed to be---given the symmetry
between return values and arguments, I'd say it'd have to be

(define (values->list . vals)
  vals)

This procedure is called LIST in R5RS, so LIST-VALUES isn't a name
symmetric with anything.  UNLIST seems fine.

Or am I missing something?

--
Cheers =8-} Mike
Friede, Völkerverständigung und überhaupt blabla