If you type . after a pointer expression, VAX helpfully changes it to ->. For smart pointers, or when it goes wrong, you can backspace to get the . back.
But backspace is a long way from "." (or it is on all the keyboards I've used). It would be cool if, as well as Backspace, you could press . after VAX inserts -> to get the dot back. ("->." isn't valid C++ syntax, so it's unlikely that's what you want.)