The idea is to put Item_direct_ref_to_item as a transparent and
permanent wrapper before a string which require conversion.
So that Item_direct_ref_to_item would be the only place where
the pointer to the string item is stored, this pointer can be changed
and restored during PS execution as needed. And if any permanent
(subquery) optimization would need a pointer to the item,
it'll use a pointer to the Item_direct_ref_to_item - which is
a permanent item and won't go away.