Well, if you ask me, it's a lot different to have

if($var=~/hello/){$first="hello";$second="world"}

than to have

if ( $var =~ /hello/ ) {
  $first="hello";
  $second="world" }
[download]

or even

if ( $var =~ /hello/ ) {
  $first  = "hello";
  $second = "world"
}
[download]

So no, it is not a futile exercise!

I agree with everything you say, apart from "this is a futile exercise".

It's not a matter of finding the most beautiful code, because we all know opinions differ. It's just a matter of finding code that is reasonably well written to be understood with... well, at least with not so many problems as with the first example I showed.