For me it works like this:

1. changes to $classname = Date and add a use statement at the top of the file
2. I am currently not aware this can be done any different.

thanks

Wrong on both :P

1. It's the string of the class not a class instance so you need the use statement and $classname = Date::class (that just allows easier future refactoring in IDE's)
2. JLoader imports where special cases where we named classes in weird ways that didn't conform to Joomla's built in autoloader. So yes you can remove it and replace it with a use statement with the namespaced classes as it will work just fine with the composer autoloader

JLoader imports where special cases where we named classes in weird ways that didn't conform to Joomla's built in autoloader. So yes you can remove it and replace it with a use statement as it will work just fine with the composer autoloader

Isnt that where we can do
use joomla\cms\blah\blah as ginger

??

you don't need the as even :)

thanks