Obviously, .then() is listed as the official replacement for .pipe(), however as described in #3325, .then() forces execution of the callback onto a new context, even in the case of a promise/deferred that is already resolved, unlike .pipe().

In the following case, .then() is not a suitable replacement for .pipe(), for the above reason.

var promise = someAsyncOperation()
    .then(function(results)) {
        return processResults(results);
    });

if (promise.state() !== "resolved") {
    $overlay.fadeIn(500);

    promise
        .done(function() {
            $overlay.fadeOut(500);
        });
}

return promise;

If someAsyncOperation() utilizes .then() to filter results anywhere in the call chain, the $overlay animations will play unintentionally.

As far as I can tell, there's no alternative in the current library to combine the "immediate callback" behavior of .done() with the filtering behavior of .then(), except for the deprecated method .pipe(). Am I missing something?