C like op= proposal

[Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com>]

A few weeks ago the topic of the readability of C's op= construct
vis-a-vis the Ada "lhs := lhs op operand;" statements, with the general 
tenor being that the C syntax is more readable, at least in cases where 
"lhs" is some fairly long identifier, perhaps an array embedded in a 
record being incremented or otherwise operated upon. I remembered reading 
about a language which had a more general approach to this, allowing a 
pseudo-variable, say "@" to represent the old value of the left hand side
of an assignment in the right hand side, thus allowing things like 

lhs := @ + 1;                  -- C: lhs++;
lhs := @ * 5;                  -- C: lhs *= 5;
lhs := 1/@ + 5*(@/2 + @ ** 2); -- C doesn't do so good here either!

Was anything like this ever discussed for Ada? Assuming some acceptable 
notation was chosen for the pseudo-variable ("_" works, but stands out
less to my eye than "@"), would people find this more or less readable 
than the current verbose approach?

-- Brian