Refactor & reduce duplication across route DSL
Small cleanup:

* Rename _route to _normalize_route
* Add small comment to make code easier to follow
* @{$ref} instead of @$ref
Use require better:

Instead of using the string version of "require" with the path,
just use the barewords version. One of the few situations in which
barewords are better. :)
reflect change
Merge branch 'feature/refactor'