[Tagging] Proposal: Sunset ref=* on ways in favor of relations

[Joachim]

In my practice I use relations for every route, but leave ref on the
ways for signed routes. For roads these are motorway and
"Bundesstraßen" (mostly primary) in Germany.
While checking e-roads in Germany I came across a relation which was
empty. Viewing the history failed because of a timeout from the API
(history too large). Luckily the ways still had int_ref so restoring
the relation was easy. What other chances are there to retrieve older
versions of relations other than JOSM/osm.org? I read something about
overpass.

Regards Joachim