That's pretty much the consensus that I've arrived at. No need to use $[, since according to the docs, it's set to 0 anyway. $# in a list context seems to be perfectly okay, and it definitley(sp?) saves time and effort.
I hear what you're saying about $[ being hard to read. Looking at code that says: $array[$[] .... it takes more than a casual glance to know what's going on.