These are all good answers. For the sake of brevity, I asked the specific question. The general question has to to do with 'strict' and variables the programmer doesn't directly create.

I gave up trying to be strict with a program that used 'getopt' that created variables for commnad line options. I knew what was comming, so extra effort to get thenm scoped properly just seemed wrong (and I couldn't figure it out).

But the explicit naming in the export fits the bill nicely in that it tells me when I try something I didn't plan. Thanks all. Now another tool in the box.