Does that make sense?

Not really.

I certainly don't want the routine *compiled* each time I invoke the routine. I want it to use the same lexical frame as the variables that the sub is defined in.

You can either pass them in to the sub, or you can use lambdas. In perl, today, you can't have it both ways. Even if you had named lexical subs, they'd still have to be recompiled each time (minus compiler optimizations, which may exist for function ref lambdas). Anyway, I think function refs are perfectly clear. They're very widely used and when you need a lambda, they're the appropriate way to do it.

Here's just a couple of the common uses. You can think of millions more I'm sure. Don't shy away from function refs. They're quite clear.

my $awesome = awesome();
print "still tickin'\n" while $awesome->();

sub awesome {
   my @a = (1 .. 10);
   return sub { shift @a };
}

my %code_table = (
   action1 => sub {print "doin' it\n"},
);

$code_table{action1}->();  # also awesome
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People really expect the subs to work they way they do now though, so it's not likely to be changed until perl6 at the earliest. Imagine how much code would break if they suddenly worked differently?

The locals aren't really being crushed...their just in flux....(duplicated, really)....

Oh, I get it. I'm just saying that...

  my ($c,$d); my ($c,d) = (4,5); # ...maybe we can live without the fi
+rst my?
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Essentially, I was asking if that was unintentional and might be causing your troubles.