> Why would I be more likely to mutate state in sending a message to an object than I would be applying a procedure to a struct?

I think most people don't think about objects in terms of sending a message to them, but in terms of calling a method on them. OOP in JS, currently, revolves a lot around mutable objects. JS itself revolves a lot around mutability. Some people are trying to change that, at least by getting proper support for the alternative. The pipeline operator is part of that.