Fix #84, Remove side-effects and superfluous initializations

[thnkslprpt]

Checklist

• I reviewed the Contributing Guide.
• I signed and emailed the appropriate Contributor License Agreement to GSFC-SoftwareRelease@mail.nasa.gov and copied cfs-program@lists.nasa.gov.

Describe the contribution

• Fixes Superfluous assignments, side-effects. type updates etc. #84
  • updates a couple of generic types to their typedefs
  • removes superfluous initializations (converts them to simple declaration/definition)
  • adds Status/Result variable to remove side-effects inside conditionals where it makes sense

Testing performed
GitHub CI actions all passing successfully (incl. Build + Run, Unit/Functional Tests etc.).

Expected behavior changes
No change to behavior.
Code will be more readable, clearer and easier to maintain.

Contributor Info
Avi Weiss @thnkslprpt