I'd counter that, as your version is coded, it is correct behaviour, but if it was coded as

local $_ = "I live!\n";
for $_ (1..100) {
    printf "\r%d", $_;
    last if $_ == 50;
}
print "$/The value of 'this' after the loop is $_$/";
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It wouldn't be correct as I have explicitly overridden the implicit behaviour.

At at this point I'm supporting what I consider would be intuatively correct behaviour. Perl ain't never gonna work this way, and I accepted that way back with cees first post:)