you might notice that this too uses eval.

Actually, /e doesn't do an eval - the code is compiled at the same time as the main body of code; you need /ee for that. If $& was an lvalue, then the following pairs would be equivalent:

s/foo/bar/        s/foo/bar/e        s/foo/bar/ee
$& = "bar"        $& = bar           $& = eval bar
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Dave.