Sheer wizardry! Thanks for sharing it.

I should point out that zup is destructive, as you can see if you try:

print zup \(@array1, @array2, @array3);
print "\n";
print zup \(@array1, @array2, @array3);
print "\n";
__END__
ab cc 12
bc dd 34
cd ee 56
de gg 78
[download]

Also, I don't think the line

no warnings qw/syntax/;
[download]

is necessary.