(?(?{ print "$1 $2 $3\n" })(*FAIL)|(*ACCEPT))
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I don't understand the purpose of the  (*ACCEPT) false clause in the quoted code fragment. Because the print will always return true (unless there's some terrible I/O failure :), this clause will never be executed. The following versions of the code (with and without (*ACCEPT)) test the same in all 5.10+ Perl versions I have in captivity (see this):

use 5.010;  # need (?(?{ code }) pattern)

use Test::More 'no_plan';
use Test::NoWarnings;

note 'perl version ', $];

for my $rw ('.+', '.+ w?') {
    for my $rx ('.+', '.+ x?') {
        for my $ry ('.+', '(?: . y?)+') {

            my $captures = qr{ ($rw) ($rx) ($ry) }xms;

            local our @ra;
            use re 'eval';
            '01234' =~ m{
              \A $captures \z
            # (?(?{ push @ra, [ $1, $2, $3 ] }) (*F) | (*ACCEPT))
              (?(?{ push @ra, [ $1, $2, $3 ] }) (*F))
              }xms;

            is_deeply \@ra,
              [ [ qw(012  3  4) ],
                [ qw(01  23  4) ],
                [ qw(01  2  34) ],
                [ qw(0  123  4) ],
                [ qw(0  12  34) ],
                [ qw(0  1  234) ],
                ], $captures;

            }  # end for $ry
        }  # end for $rx
    }  # end for $rw

done_testing;
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(Of course, the push statement always returns true.) The true magick seems to reside in the use of the regex conditional expression.

Output:

c:\@Work\Perl\monks\kroki>perl permute_via_regex_1.pl
# perl version 5.014004
ok 1 - (?^msx: (.+) (.+) (.+) )
ok 2 - (?^msx: (.+) (.+) ((?: . y?)+) )
ok 3 - (?^msx: (.+) (.+ x?) (.+) )
ok 4 - (?^msx: (.+) (.+ x?) ((?: . y?)+) )
ok 5 - (?^msx: (.+ w?) (.+) (.+) )
ok 6 - (?^msx: (.+ w?) (.+) ((?: . y?)+) )
ok 7 - (?^msx: (.+ w?) (.+ x?) (.+) )
ok 8 - (?^msx: (.+ w?) (.+ x?) ((?: . y?)+) )
1..8
ok 9 - no warnings
1..9
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Of course, your final thought still holds true: none of this is guaranteed against future regex engine optimizations and other "improvements"!