In TDPL const/immutable are type qualifiers. Type qualifier is a synonym for type modifier, isn't it? And I know storage classes like static/ref. In C you have the type qualifiers const, volatile, and restrict and the storage classes auto, register, static, extern. Now const in D is a storage class?
I also think const char* x in D2 is equal to const(char*) x while a direct translation would be const(char)* x
So you might use the former version to keep compatibility with D1.