OK, here is my proposal: my script makes a hierarchy of directories, the depth depending on how many files fall in the given namespace. It ensures that there are not more than a given number of files in any dir. It doesn't guarantee, however, that some of the dirs contain fewer files. But it's fairly simple and I suggest you give it a go and let me know how it worked for you...

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $maxFiles = 100;    #max no of files per directory
my $dir = shift;
chdir $dir or die "Cant change to directory $dir: $!\n";

foreach my $i (0..9) {
    partitionRecursive ($i, '.');
}

sub partitionRecursive {
    my ($prefix, $path) = @_;
    my @files = glob ("$prefix*");
    return unless @files;
    mkdir "$path/_$prefix" or die "Cant make dir $path/_$prefix: $!\n"
+;
    if (@files < $maxFiles) {
        #if there are less than maxFiles, move them all to the new dir
        system ("mv $prefix* $path/_$prefix") == 0 or die "Cant move f
+iles to $prefix: $!\n";
    }
    else {
        #otherwise, move those with one more character than the prefix
+ to the new dir
        #can be omitted if all filenames are equal in length
        system ("mv $prefix? $path/_$prefix") == 0 or die "Cant move f
+iles to $prefix: $!\n"; 
    }
    foreach my $nextDigit (0..9) {
        partitionRecursive ("$prefix$nextDigit", "$path/_$prefix");
    }
}
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pike