It's certainly a common complaint, but I'm not sure that tokenizer tricks are insurmountable problems:

How many "r"s are in s r t r a w b e r r y s t r a w b e r r y?

Let me count the "r"s one by one: s (r[1]) t (r[2]) a w b e (r[3]) (r[4]) y s t (r[5]) a w b e (r[6]) (r[7]) y

There are 7 "r"s in "s r t r a w b e r r y s t r a w b e r r y".