I don't really see this fact as being a good defense of similar issues cropping up in artificial languages.

The reason it is a "good defense" is because it shows that context can successfully resolve a lot of ambiguity that would otherwise have to be resolved in different ways. The advantage in artificial langauges is the same as it is in natural languages. It makes a lot of things easier to say.

We need programming languages for the precision with which they allow us to specify the operation of systems. Anything that goes against this end ought to be considered a misfeature.

If being explicit and long-winded is your cup of tea, that's fine. But it certainly doesn't seem to be part of the Perl culture, and I don't see it changing drastically any time soon. If you think that results in a loss of utility and is the source of misfeatures, well, all I can say is I disagree.