I agree with this. I'd go even further and say that dot syntax should only be used to access things that are /actually a part of the object/, whether record fields or methods. If you use the dot for everything just because it's convenient, you're making the code structure harder to understand by syntactically conflating different mechanisms.

I use it when the idea is data flows from left to right.

unless your intent is to simulate open classes, and the functions you call via the dot are conceptually meant to be an extended set of methods for the type