So everything that is part of Perl is undiluted goodness? How about the two parameter open or the .. operator that is two completely different an unrelated operators depending on context (where the context can be very subtle at times)?

Perl's for loop is much closer to "intuitive" than C's for loops. Sure, C's for loops are comfortable for a C programmer, but that doesn't make them intuitive, predictable or easy compared with Perl's loops.

Perl is a different language than C. Just because you can write C (or FORTRAN for that matter) in Perl doesn't mean you should. Embrace the Perly goodness and cast off the C baggage - use Perl for loops unless you really, really, really absolutely can't avoid using a C style loop.