While working on this PR https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/18570 I ran into a bit confusing situation where in one function a **CWallet reference** was expected while two others dealt with **CWallet pointers**. My initial reaction was: `let's harmonize them by making them references`. However, not being part of the PR itself I did't change anything and completed the PR first.

Now, after having analyzed the `rpcwallet.cpp` code I came to the conclusion that:

* converting them all into references is not the solution as they're originally **shared_ptr**s
* but also: there is no (visible) reason why every RPC function should begin like this:

```cpp
std::shared_ptr<CWallet> const pwallet = GetWalletForJSONRPCRequest(request);
const CWallet* const pwallet = wallet.get();
```

This clearly defeats the purpose of shared pointers for no obvious reason. *Maybe I am missing something?*

In my (unpublished) [code changes](https://github.com/brakmic/bitcoin/commit/0b3ee615491edf6f542631bf6ae6f72eac406550) all raw pointers got replaced with **shared_ptr**s but kept their original names (that is, *pwallet*). In the end, they're pointers too, so the most of the original code remained untouched.

However, some of the helper functions couldn't be changed because external code is accessing them and I didn't want to make this task "virulent". So I introduced new ("Ref") variants that expect **shared_ptr** parameters, namely: 

```cpp
void EnsureWalletRefIsUnlocked(const std::shared_ptr<CWallet>);
bool EnsureWalletRefIsAvailable(const std::shared_ptr<CWallet>, bool avoidException);
```

I have tested the code, with python and boost-tests, and could not find any errors. 
But before opening a PR I would like to open a discussion about this. 

Is there any reason to keep on working with raw pointers when every function call actually begins with *shared_ptr*s?

Regards,
if (!wallet) return NullUniValue;
    CWallet* const pwallet = wallet.get();
    std::string flag_str = request.params[0].get_str();
    bool value = request.params[1].isNull() || request.params[1].get_bool();
    if (!WALLET_FLAG_MAP.count(flag_str)) {
        throw JSONRPCError(RPC_INVALID_PARAMETER, strprintf("Unknown wallet flag: %s", flag_str));
    }
    auto flag = WALLET_FLAG_MAP.at(flag_str);
    if (!(flag & MUTABLE_WALLET_FLAGS)) {
        throw JSONRPCError(RPC_INVALID_PARAMETER, strprintf("Wallet flag is immutable: %s", flag_str));
    }
    UniValue res(UniValue::VOBJ);
    if (pwallet->IsWalletFlagSet(flag) == value) {
        throw JSONRPCError(RPC_INVALID_PARAMETER, strprintf("Wallet flag is already set to %s: %s", value ? "true" : "false", flag_str));
    }
    res.pushKV("flag_name", flag_str);
    res.pushKV("flag_state", value);
    if (value) {
        pwallet->SetWalletFlag(flag);
    } else {
        pwallet->UnsetWalletFlag(flag);
    }
    if (flag && value && WALLET_FLAG_CAVEATS.count(flag)) {
        res.pushKV("warnings", WALLET_FLAG_CAVEATS.at(flag));
    }
    return res;
},
    };
}
static RPCHelpMan createwallet()