I have never used File::Find or any of its cousins, so take my comments with a grain of salt. I don't do much filesystem work, so I rarely need to deal with files. When I have, a simple glob worked nicely.

I have looked at File::Find before, but quit reading after the first few lines of the POD. It was making easy things difficult. IMHO, a module that deals with something as basic as finding files should

• have more than one interface
• be blindingly simple

File::Find fails both those tests.

Additionally, I would think that one of those interfaces should be an iterator. Whether or not you pass some set of rules in to the finder, iterators are just plain useful.

As for subrefs, map, and the like - that's a separate question. Callbacks are a non-trivial concept, and should be treated as an upper level in programming (at least how programming is taught in most places). That File::Find requires this interface is just another reason why it's not well designed.