Remove unnecessary `as[_mut]_slice`/`to_string()` calls

Now that we have an overloaded comparison (`==`) operator, and that `Vec`/`String` deref to `[T]`/`str` on method calls, many `as_slice()`/`as_mut_slice()`/`to_string()` calls have become redundant. This patch removes them. These were the most common patterns:

- `assert_eq(test_output.as_slice(), "ground truth")` -> `assert_eq(test_output, "ground truth")`
- `assert_eq(test_output, "ground truth".to_string())` -> `assert_eq(test_output, "ground truth")`
- `vec.as_mut_slice().sort()` -> `vec.sort()`
- `vec.as_slice().slice(from, to)` -> `vec.slice(from_to)`

---

Note that e.g. `a_string.push_str(b_string.as_slice())` has been left untouched in this PR, since we first need to settle down whether we want to favor the `&*b_string` or the `b_string[]` notation.

This is rebased on top of #19167

cc @alexcrichton @aturon 
The `==` is now overloaded, so you can do `Vec<String> == &[&'static str]`, `Vec<String> == Vec<String>`, etc.

Since the LHS may not necessarily have the same type as the RHS, the compiler can't "force" the type of `elems` to be `Vec` (like it used to do), hence type annotation is needed.