The point about the advantages of local *_ = \ $array[$i]; is well taken, but I absolutely hate for(;;) loops. It seems like I've made a fencepost error almost every time I wrote one of those. There are very few cases where it's the most appropriate solution. Since for(;;) is implemented in terms of while(){} continue{}, you should use while(){} unless you actually need a very simple continue{} block (and I've never come across such a case). For abitrarily complex index calculation I'd do something like this:

my $get_next_idx = make_index_iterator(\@array);

while(my $i = $get_next_idx->()) {
    local *_ = \ $array[$i];
    # $_ is aliased here
}
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(Note how the point about ($_) for BrowserUk's code doesn't apply as $i is an array index, not an array element.)

Makeshifts last the longest.