Maybe I'm nitpicky, but isn't it a bit wrong (and slightly confusing) to say that you "return an object as a pointer"?

Too me, that doesn't really make sense.
What you do is "returning a pointer that points to the object".

The pointer itself is an object too, a very different object then the class object it (maybe) points to.
I think that remembering this makes the answer more obvious.

But again, I'm not even a native english speaker, so maybe I read too much into the grammar....

Maybe I'm nitpicky, but isn't it a bit wrong (and slightly confusing) to say that you "return an object as a pointer"?

 

Too me, that doesn't really make sense. 

What you do is "returning a pointer that points to the object".

 

The pointer itself is an object too, a very different object then the class object it (maybe) points to.

I think that remembering this makes the answer more obvious.