The choice of approaches could be made the responsibility of the programmer.
And I don't like doing silly things (except on purpose).
It should be illegal to yell 'Y2K' in a crowded economy.
Computer language design is just like a stroll in the park. Jurassic Park, that is.
As pointed out in a followup, Real Perl Programmers prefer things to be visually distinct.
What about writing it first and rationalizing it afterwards?