To me, this is tant amount to pilots turning off the various alerts in the cockpit, because they dislike the noise and flashing lights. Shouldn't they be looking at those lights and paying attention to those alerts?

Wouldn't you agree that flying a passenger plane full of people is a "production" level task? Perhaps they believe the distraction is offset by the perceived increase in concentration, and speed at which they roll back from the gate?

In a nutshell:

1. Fix your systems.
2. Ensure that your code runs without generating warnings.
3. Monitor the runlogs.

Leave the warnings turned on. And if your co-workers claim performance issues, either point out to them ikegami's post, or simply remind them of the pilots who turn off their alerts next time they fly.

    use strict;
    use warnings;
[download]

It's the right thing to do,
-v.