The response i have heard has been to use ContentNodes instead, i.e. rebuild your structure using ContentNode (or even Node if no media metadata) as a foundation for your nested structures. And that makes total sense if the data you have is either (a) multimedia item info or (b) will be used for RSG API calls (most components ask for their collections in ContentNode form).
Note that Node (roSgNode) components are passed by reference because of multi-thread-safe mechanism in them. So if convenient, their use is more efficient than deep copies.
Also note that inside a component script you could (and probably should) use the self/this variable `m` to store and mutate complex {}/[] structures.
