Learn English – Inside vs. outside corners

"Skin deep" and "under the skin" are a reasonably common pair. Here, "skin" is not limited to an organic sense, but can include things like the skin of an airplane or a computer's case. It may not do so well with relatively homogenous things, or where the concealing outer layer is quite thick in relation to what's inside; talking about the amazing crystals hidden within the "skin" of an unopened geode would, I feel, be odd, because rocks don't have skins: they're just rocks all the way through (and the part that looks different is pretty deep inside).

"On the surface" and either "under the surface" (if there's enough space between the uses to keep the similar words from clashing) or "deep down" also work, expressing something a bit more like an ocean, where the top appears fairly barren, but there are millions of fish and microorganisms swimming below.

In either case, it's often more useful to take just one of the pair and allow the other to be implied.

For your specific example, I might take something like the latter pair, like this:

On the surface, this programming language appears to lack such a feature, but if you look deeper, it has a much more powerful one.

A noun can appear where a object is expected. This works with proper nouns/names, so the answer to your question appears to be yes.

I watched Peter yesterday.

I watched Peter Smith yesterday.

I watched Why Do We Listen to Music yesterday.

With movie titles that are more than a few words, it can be said like this to avoid confusion, of course:

I watched the movie Why Do We Listen To Music yesterday.

As far as whether it's worthwhile to make the distinction between proper nouns and names - I think the below are examples of proper nouns that aren't names:

When do you want the assignment done, Professor?

Yes, Lord, I will complete the task.

I love you, Mom.