Disclaimer: I don't use forking, and I'm using 5.005.

Just out of curiosity, where do you get that wait() is "well-deprecated"? Seems to me that if I were to throw out docs that mentioned it, I'd have to delete perlfunc. If it were deprecated (again, at least in 5.005), I'd expect -w to throw a warning... Can you provide a reference?

Seems to me that if I were to use forking on 5.005, there'd be no way I'd know it was "well deprecated" and a "nono" until you patronizingly cleared your throat at me.