> How about (a*(b|c)d*){1}+? (Yeah, it's ugly...)

Yup, it is. But that's why we keep the uglier but more appropriate (?>) around in Perl. Occasionally, it's the right/only operator for the job.

As best as I can figure, java thinks it's being clever by using the possessive instead of (?>), which is dumb, since it doesn't cover the simple case of exactly one match. We can do better than that :-)