Shouldn't  foreach (@$fldref[3]) {} automatically use the referenced array or spit out a warning about passing a single ref?

foreach (see perlsyn) will iterate over the list that you build for it. If you build a list by de-referencing a reference to an array (an array which may have zero or one or more elements) or by simply specifying a single scalar (which may be a reference to an array of zero or more elements), that's your business.