From my quick testing, these two yield the same results:

import $pack 'hi';
$pack->import( 'hi' );
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with each of them only producing the error you quoted when $pack is a reference and is not blessed. I don't have a ton of versions of Perl handy and these results were with Perl 5.6.0. Using Perl 5.004_01, I got results too weird to mention.

So I suspect this is a Perl 5.005 bug you are experiencing.

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")