It does fail and it would add in the $_ some messages that occurred early on, but again it is so inconsistent. I wish I could re-produce it.

What I did was I "initialized" $_ to be safe. 
$test = qq();
$_ = qq();

$test = $test . $_ while(<DATA>);

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In reply to Re^2: __DATA__ Inconsistency by bichonfrise74
in thread __DATA__ Inconsistency by bichonfrise74

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