Not that I see how it's any "clearer" than a simple assignment, but you could always keep your key/value pairs in an @array and use push @array => name => "Bill" (then %hash = @array when you're all done).

Update: And another similar kinda crazy idea: store everything in a scalar in YAML format. Append new values onto to the scalar and then YAML::Load the result when you need the hash.

use YAML ();
my $data = "--- #YAML/1.0\n";
$data .= <<'EOT';
somekey: somevalue
otherkey: othervalue
EOT;

$data .= "zorch: wubba";

my $hash = YAML::Load( $data );
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