Let's say the docs present a simplified view of reality.

Are you perchance running on a 64-bit machine?

The world has become a larger place. The universe has been expanding, and Perl's been expanding along with the universe.

While I have historically been a late worker, you know, sometimes I even like to get up early and see what's happened in the few hours of the night and then I often take a nap in the middle of the day just to sort of make up for stretching my day out.

We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise.

The choice of approaches could be made the responsibility of the programmer.

Let us be charitable, and call it a misleading feature.