Swords to Plowshares and Flicker both cause you to exile a permanent from the battlefield, and then use “it” to refer to that card. However, Flicker refers to it in exile, while Swords refers to it as it last existed on the battlefield.

400.7h allows Flicker to successfully find the card in exile. I don't understand why it doesn't also allow Swords to refer to the card in exile, but it obviously doesn't – if you Swords a 2/2 with a +1/+1 counter on it, its controller gains 3 life.

How can we tell when “it” referring to a previously-moved object means the object as it was before it moved, and when it means the object as it is now?

In particular, I'm hoping to more fully understand the ruling on Reanimate, which says that if you Reanimate Clone, you'll lose 4 life regardless of what the Clone copies.