I too very infrequently use use feature 'say';, but it is always only used for testing. hippo had a good point for prod work if one doesn't remember which version included which feature, but I'm a bit different here. I've been reading perldelta since 5.8, so for things that stick, it's not often I forget which version contained what.

My reasoning for selecting individual 'feature's is typically because I only need one or two to make it easier to do certain things in a test file while debugging specific problems. Given that I attempt to write all of my code to 5.8 compatibility, I specifically put in the feature I need explicitly, then remove it afterwards. In other words, I add the feature temporarily, use *only* it/them, then when the debugging work is done, remove the debug/test lines and the individual features.

It avoids me from going overboard with newer features I didn't expressly use, and have to re-edit the specific file because I forgot things. If I haven't included a whole raft of features by using a whole branch, it's less likely I'll have additions I didn't intend later.