Replace reflect.TypeOf with reflect.TypeFor

[StephenButtolph]

Why this should be merged

This was suggested with #4211

How this works

Includes the prior diff + addresses my comment (for this test only file). I'm making a followup to fix the codec (which is non-trivial, so didn't want to mix it with this PR).

How this was tested

CI

Need to be documented in RELEASES.md?

no.

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR modernizes reflection usage by replacing reflect.TypeOf calls with the newer reflect.TypeFor generic function introduced in Go 1.22. This change improves type safety and readability by eliminating the need for pointer dereferencing patterns with nil values.

Key changes:

• Replace reflect.TypeOf((*Type)(nil)).Elem() pattern with reflect.TypeFor[Type]()
• Replace reflect.TypeOf(&Type{}) pattern with reflect.TypeFor[*Type]()

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