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One thing I can't figure out is why they need to be cloact/atoms and not just regular atoms. Is it because cloact/atoms are observable?

In a way. Using regular atoms you can only get a callback when they are modified, but not when they are deref'ed.

You could still use regular atoms, though, with some extend-type magic. But then you risk messing with non-Cloact code in horrible ways...