Before smartmatch was introduced, the answer was to use grep in boolean context, cause it in scalar context it returns the grep-count.

And if speed matters take any from List::MoreUtils . Same interface like grep but immediately returns 1 after first match.

  DB<107> @a=(a..f)x10

  DB<108> use List::MoreUtils qw/any/

  DB<109> grep { "a" eq $_ } @a
 => ("a", "a", "a", "a", "a", "a", "a", "a", "a", "a")

  DB<110> 0+ grep { "a" eq $_ } @a
 => 10

  DB<111> 0+ any { "a" eq $_ } @a
 => 1
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update

> want to axe smartmatch because it is too confusing,

The first documentation of smartmatch came with a ridiculous long table which was very hard to remember and IIRC not commutative (i.e A ~~ B wasn't B ~~ A).

( see also http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5279917/why-doesnt-this-smart-match-work )

My (a?) catch phrase was "I'm not smart enough for smart match".

Attempts to fix this destroyed the faith in it's reliability.

It's rather paradox if you "like smartmatch" with all implicit mechanisms but at the same time you state "downright stupid is the implicit use of $_" ???

We certainly need a better way to introduce and test no features...

well actually we have do have use feature!!!

I wouldn't object if say was made standard ...