Sure, it works, and has no ill effects, but as a matter of style, it's just bad.

That's just a matter of opinion. A piece of opinion that doesn't come with a rational. Knowing you find the style bad is interesting for census takers, programmers will find it more interesting why you find it bad style.

I rank using the trinary in void context on the same level as using 'or' or 'and' in void context:

    /^#/ and next;
    open ... or die ...;
    -d $_ ? handle_directory($_) : handle_file($_);
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and those are almost on the same level as using statement modifiers:

    next if /^#/;
    die ... unless open ...;
    parse_file($_) for @files;
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Either they are all bad, or none of them are. And for me, none of them are.