Perl's transparent handling of the differences between numeric and string values is one of its major strengths. Much of my programming background is in strongly typed languages and when I first started using Perl I envisaged a lot of wasted time sorting out problems because of the lack of variable typing and checking. In fact that hasn't transpired at all.

To an extent the problems you seem to be having are because you are fighting against Perl rather then letting it DWIM (Do What I Mean). The vast majority of the time Perl just gets on with business and is unsurprising - which is really surprising when you think about it!