Dave,

Upon going back and re-reading this post of yours, I realize that you WIN 2 MORE BROWNIE POINTS! :)

First, I needed to add $1 and $a to the list of banned special vars:

LMPC #23. Thou Shalt Not Use Aliased, Non-Descriptive, Special ($1, $a, %ENV, %SIG, etc), Or Punctuation Variables ($_, @_, %!, $@, $$, etc)

Second, even though tie() is banned in PBP, and I've tried my best not to repeat-ban items from PBP, I think your point is well-taken in that tie() is important enough to be double-banned and appear in both PBP & LMPC:

LMPC #16. Thou Shalt Use A Type System (“use types;”), Static-Type Data, Variable Declarations, & Non-Tied Variables

LMPC #17. Thou Shalt Not Use Dynamic-Type Data, Auto-Vivification, Or Tied Variables

Thanks again!

Perling,
~ Will