Would you care to consider how many modules on CPAN predate "the standard" Test::Builder?

Or how many authors specify a plan?

I suppose that it would be labouring my point to suggest that of the output shown, only 1 line (the 4th) of the 7 is of any use to me at all, and that still tells me nothing about where the error occurred in the module being tested.

Good test descriptions help with this

With line numbers, I don't need to add test descriptions, good or bad. That's another piece of effort that it removes from the programmer.

Why force the programmer to translate the automatically assigned, automatically mainatained, unique identifier that a line number is, into a textual description that requires careful consideration to come up with a "good description", and force the tester (whether the original programmer, a maintanence programmer coming along later with a completely different mindset for who the original "good description" means absolutely nothing, or a user for whom it will probably never mean anything), back into a line number?

What purpose did all that extra effort serve?