they will be removed completely in Perl6". So that might be a reason to avoid this particular type of magic,...

By that token, you should also avoid $array[ 1 ] = 2;, because that won't work in p6 either.

Nor will $hash{fred}=27;.

Nor will do { n++; } while $n < 10;.

Nor will print ( 'Hello, world!" );.

Nor will while( <DATA> ) { my @array = split'\t'' };.

Nor will keys %hash = 1000;.

Nor will for( my i=0; $i < @array; i++ ) {...};

Nor will $#array = 1_000_000;.

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Nor will open FILE, '<', 'myfile' or die $!;.

But then again, local *array = \$arrayRef; won't be needed, because the syntax for

my @array;
push @array, $somevalue;
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And

my $array = [];
push @array, $someValue;
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Will be the same...or so it was at some point in time.

So, whilst P5 doesn't provide an alternative to the simplicity of

local *array = $aRef; 
push @array, $someValue;
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it is a very useful construct to know.