That approach ensures that each line of the continued expression will start with an operator

Another reason I support this style is the starting operators can be made inline with the assignment operator where the line begins. I don't think it's so much unusual in Perl code, at least, it's not strange for me.

However, I still much prefer (and get used) to break long lines after the operator because the adoption of \ (backslash) usage to break long lines in Unix/Linux convention. Still, both styles sign line continuation as we don't see the statement terminator (;) until the last line of the group.