Well Perl started as a script language, that's why it mimics glob.

I rarely use <> for globbing, and I wouldn't mind if this feature would be disabled. And I agree that this DWIM logic is somehow surprising.

But everybody is free to overload <> to do so.

Your second critic about glob() is somehow cryptic for me, if you say touch hubba you don't want to touch "nothing" because hubba doesn't already exist.

Perl's success in its early years came from its compatibility with established tools.

Otherwise we wouldn't be here discussing Perl...