I don't know how to reconcile that with our desire to use JSLint/Hint. When I make changes in a file, I like to fix the lint warnings at the same time. IMO it is a fairly universal best practice now for JS, so I don't think it is worth fighting it. 

Having said that, I like to rewrite my functions to be shorter so that (a) they are simple to comprehend, (b) they do just one thing well, and (c) they don't need a lot of variables.