Update: Never mind, i see it now ;P)

Why would that be trouble?

use strict;
use warnings;

use Data::Dumper;

my $hash = { test => 1};
print Dumper($hash);
print "Hello\n" x!! exists($hash->{test});
print Dumper($hash);
print "One More\n" x!! exists($hash->{test2}) && exists($hash->{test2}
+->{Dude});
print Dumper($hash);
[download]

That works as expected and doesn't autovivify anything...did I miss something?