The reason a search for "hyperoperator" doesn't turn up anything new is that they're no longer called that. The new name for them is "vector operators." (Similarly, superpositions are now called junctions.) Search for that and you'll turn up newer information, though I don't think there's been as much discussion on them lately.

Yes, the vector op has been changed from ^op to »op« or it's ASCII equivalent >>op<<. You should know that there was a lot of discussion on the syntax here, and multiple options were discussed. For a list of proposed syntaxes and their pros and cons, check out this article on google groups.

As to why, specifically, ^op was abolished, I believe it has to do with code like this: @a ^+= @b. I don't remember what exactly the problem was off the top of my head, though I'm sure some searching could turn it up.

As to the use of unicode as an operator, get used to it. Perl 6 source files are in unicode. This is a time of transition. You still have ASCII equivalents you can use, but they'll be a little uglier. If it was possible to make things beautiful without resorting to unicode, they'd have done it. As it is, unicode is only used in marginal cases.