In addition to the above, as the main utility of aliasing a reference in that way is to simplify the syntax of using the ref, having to type the extra $main::aref[1] or $::aref[1] isn't that much better that typing $aref->[1]

However, you can avoid even this inconvenience by using the vars pragma. eg. use vars '*aref';

Once you have informed the compiler that you intend to use a package global in this way, you no longer need to fully specify the prefix:

#! perl -sw
use strict;
use vars '*aref';

sub test{
    local(*aref) = shift;
    print  "$aref[$_]\n" for 0..@aref;
}

my(@array) = qw(one two three four five);

test(\@array);
__END__
C:\test>213248
one
two
three
four
five
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