* Struct "metric_t": unnecessary fields "type", "plugin", "ds" have
been removed. The field "value_ds_type" has been renamed to
"value_type".
* The reference counted, multiple instance "meta_data_list_head_t" type
has been removed. Manually doing the reference counting all over the
place is error prone and it seems like premature optimization.
* The "<type>_destroy" functions must handle NULL gracefully. Removed
NULL-checks around their invocation to improve readability.