"goto creates spurious scopes".

No, goto doesn't create scopes, spurious or otherwise. There aren't any hidden or misbehaving scopes here. It's a bit like the following code:

while (1) {
    $i = 0;
    my @a;
  again:
    push @a, 1;
    goto again if $i++ < 1000;
}
[download]

In that code, there are only two scopes: the implied whole-file scope, and the while loop. The array will repeatedly have 1000 elements pushed on it, then be emptied.

The goto just moves execution around to various places within the one scope.

Perhaps the confusion is seeing 'my' as just a compiler declaration, like 'int' is in C; it's not; its something that has a runtime effect as well as a compile-time effect. If you repeatedly execute the 'my' without ever leaving the scope which that 'my' is embedded in, then that runtime effect will accumulate.

Dave.

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