I totally agree with you, Brutha. Maybe that's because I never had an imperative need to write a strictly optimized code. Instead, I prefer clarity and I always use several lines, e.g.:

my $copy = $main_variable ;
$copy =~ s/my name/dumb me/g ;
[download]

even when one line would easily do. As long as you don't need to suck every cycle out of your (maybe rather old) CPU, it's better to be slower and readable. Especially when your code is likely to survive when you leave your job :-) IMHO

Ciao!
--bronto

# Another Perl edition of a song:
# The End, by The Beatles
END {
  $you->take($love) eq $you->made($love) ;
}