One thing that's nice about functions is that they force the associated block of code to be named, and for state that is specific to the function to be clearly separate from external state (closures aside). It would be good to be able to retain those advantages even in linear code that nevertheless has clear boundaries between different parts of it that would be nice to enforce or at least highlight, but without losing the readability of sequential execution.

To some extent you can have that in languages that let you create a named lambda with explicit captures and immediately invoke it, e.g. in C++:

   int g;

   void doThisAndThat(int a, int b, int c) {

      doThis: auto x = [&a, &b] {
        ...
      }();

      doThat: [&g, &c, &x] {
        ...
      }();
   }

The syntax makes it kind of an eyesore though. Would be nice to have something specifically designed for this purpose.