Both Perl 1-5's method and Perl 6's method are consistent, just along different dimensions. In Classic Perl, $ means "one thing" and @ means "many things". In New Perl, $ means "scalar variable" and @ means "array variable".

They both have advantages and disadvantages. For example, the rules about whether the index of an array is in scalar or list context were very very simple in Classic Perl (an element always provided scalar context to the index, and a slice always provided list context).

In New Perl, it's become a complex issue with a lot of corner cases, because it depends a lot on how the index expression "looks". Ugh.

The problem is that you're not "assigning" this value anywhere, so you don't get the contextual cues from the left side of such an assignment. And worse, how an index expression "looks" also affects whether it is describing an element or a slice, which then affects the rvalue if this is an assigment's lvalue. Double ugh. One little mistake will ripple forward badly.

This is going to be hell to describe in the updated Llama. I'm not looking forward to writing that or teaching that.