FYI, part of the design of xdress is to not pass rc objects into the actual worker functions. The plugin is responsible for pulling off the needed attributes from the rc object and passing them explicitly into the worker functions.  The advantages this are that everything is explicit and that unit tests don't need to setup or mock up an rc object to run.  It attempts to separate the model from the controller.  If you are not a fan of this method, we can have a conversation about this strategy on the mailing list.  It is pretty endemic throughout the code base as it stands, though.