a.php

<?php

// Version A: Facades everywhere - typical Laravel 4.2 style


// routes.php
Route::get('payments', 'BillingController@recentPayments');

// BillingController.php
class BillingController {
  
  public function __construct(PaymentsRepository $payments)
  {
    $this->payments = $payments;
  }
  
  public function recentPayments()
  {
    return View::make('billing.payments', [
      'payments' => $this->payments->recent();
    ]);
  }
	
}

b.php

<?php

// Version B: No facades, dependency injection


// routes.php
$router->get('payments', 'BillingController@recentPayments');

// BillingController.php
class BillingController {
  
  public function __construct(PaymentsRepository $payments, Factory $view)
  {
    $this->payments = $payments;
    $this->view = $view;
  }
  
  public function recentPayments()
  {
    return $this->view->make('billing.recent-payments', [
      'payments' => $this->payments->recent();
    ]);
  }
	
}

c.php

<?php

// Version C: Routing annotations


class BillingController {
  
  public function __construct(PaymentsRepository $payments, Factory $view)
  {
    $this->payments = $payments;
    $this->view = $view;
  }
  
  /**
   * @Get("/payments")
   */
  public function recentPayments()
  {
    return $this->view->make('billing.recent-payments', [
      'payments' => $this->payments->recent();
    ]);
  }
	
}

d.php

<?php

// Version D: Annotations for views, instead of injecting the view factory (or using the facade)


class BillingController {
  
  public function __construct(PaymentsRepository $payments) 
  {
    $this->payments = $payments;
  }
  
  /**
   * @Get("/payments")
   * @View("recent-payments")
   */
  public function recentPayments()
  {
    return [
      'payments' => $this->payments->recent();
    ];
  }
	
}

Version E - Laravel 5.0 Style:

/**
 * @Get("/payments")
 */
public function recentPayments()
{
  return view('recent-payments', [
    'payments' => $this->payments->recent();
  ]);
}

How's that?

Nice.

But I don't get how the view() function is any improvement over the "facades". Only case I see for them is to remove the potential confusion of having to use \View::make() instead of View::make() inside the now-namespaced controllers.

I'm not sure a @View("..") annotation is a good thing either, though. Mostly just been hacking about to see how easy custom Annotations are (they're kinda not).