General code improvements

What does this MR do?

Small group of drive-by refactorings and improvements extracted from !40088 (merged).

This set of changes is backwards compatible, and can be applied independently of the original MR.

Does this MR meet the acceptance criteria?

Conformity

• Changelog entry
• Documentation (if required)
• Code review guidelines
• Merge request performance guidelines
• Style guides
• Database guides
• Separation of EE specific content

Availability and Testing

• Review and add/update tests for this feature/bug. Consider all test levels. See the Test Planning Process.