Here's what my Raisonance compiler (V03.03.37) makes of Chris' pointer dereference code:

; FUNCTION Func0 (BEGIN)

MOV    R2,b
INC    b
MOV    AR0,R2
MOV    R3,a
INC    a
MOV    AR1,R3
MOV    A,@R0
MOV    @R1,A
RET    

; FUNCTION Func1 (BEGIN)
MOV    R0,b
MOV    R1,a
MOV    A,@R0
MOV    @R1,A
INC    a
INC    b
RET

Regards,
Rob.