For what little it's worth, this code prints the _TOP format on every page (including the first), with 3 different perls. perl 5.6.1 for cygwin, ActivePerl 633 (also a 5.6.1), and perl 5.6.0 on Linux.

I don't have a 5.8.0 RC installed, though; maybe that's the problem?

Here's the code:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my $total;


format STDOUT_TOP =
                            @>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
                            'Page: ' . $%
   Numbers
---------------
.


format STDOUT =
@>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
$total
.

for $total(1..200) {
    write STDOUT;
}
[download]

(Edit: Just ran a grepmail on my copy of the p5p archives, and the only thing even remotely related to this appears to be bug 20020227.005, and that's a problem with empty _TOP sections... I don't see any sign that this behaviour changed from 5.6.1 to 5.8.0)
--
Mike