The 2 programs listed are not equivalent. If you want to rephrase Ovid's example to match your example, it would be something like:

sub Ovid_Clear_MakePtag2{
  my $fixme = shift;           # take in our parameters
  return join "",              # join with nothing
    map  { "<p>$_</p>" }       # wrap each line in <p></p> tags
    split "\r\n", $fixme;      # break apart on the newlines
}
[download]

Or even:

sub Abstract_Clear_MakePtag{
  my $fixme = shift;           # take in our parameters
  return "<p>" . 
         join("</p><p>", split "\r\n", $fixme) . 
         "</p>"  
}
[download]

which uses 2 concepts: split and join (really one concept).

Would this make a good "clear" example?

As for my opinion, I'd go with your example being the clearer of the 3 examples so far.