You need to read a bit more carefully before going all freaky, Abigail.
I said it wouldn't affect use strict, and it won't.
I also said I'd like it backwards-compatible if possible, which makes toke.c alterations one of the very last resorts--I don't particularly care to mess around in there if I don't have to. If I have to I will, though, at which case it's Jarkko's call on whether it goes in or not. It certainly wouldn't be the first, or the thousandth, feature to go into a maintenance release of perl.
