indeed, iterators are easier to maintain!

sub readlines {
  my ($fh, $count) = @_;
  my @gulp;
  push @gulp, scalar <$fh>
    while $count-- and  ! eof $fh;
  return @gulp;
}
 
while ( @lines = readlines(DATA,3) ) {
  print @lines,"----\n";
}
 
__DATA__
a
b  
c 
d
e
[download]

prints

a
b  
c 
----
d
e
----
[download]

alternative iterator:

sub readlines {
  my ($fh, $count) = @_;
  my @gulp;
  while (<$fh>) {
    push @gulp,$_;
    last unless --$count;
  }
  return @gulp;
}
[download]

UPDATE: Handling of edge cases like missing $count parameter could be added to the iterators:    $count=1 unless $count;

Maybe $count<=0 should be handled differently...