For the most part, I think this is probably simply a result of language evolution - I'm sure that even once Perl 6 is released, we'll still be finding syntactical anomalies that could better be rewritten and indeed most likely will be.

Don't get me wrong, this statement isn't meant to dissuade your argument, but rather support it - I see great value in your comments and its such comments that are required to drive changes. However, as with all aspects of Perl, its "perfection in progress" ;-)

 

perl -e 's&&rob@cowsnet.com.au&&&split/[@.]/&&s&.com.&_&&&print'