First part of your answer:
The reason I am using a struct in this particular case is because I want data that is related to multiple classes, otherwise I would just have that data as part of a class so creating the struct inside each class is of no help and I already know how to do this.
The second part of your answer:
Just because there are uses for non-pointers does not render pointers pointless. Storing a struct or class with a lot of data is bad programming and can be a huge difference in memory storage compared to an int or float. For example - one of my structs, which has over 20 properties, would make each reference to an instance of the struct over 80 bytes larger than using a pointer, if I was to create 10,000 instances with that struct, the memory footprint starts making a substantial difference. Now do that with every struct or class I use in my games and you have a massive problem.
Thanks for trying to offer alternative solutions, though so far it seems I will have to stick with using raw pointers for structs (if I need them to be pointers) and cleaning them up myself.