Given that you had no trouble writing a [correct] watch expression, it seems that the documentation was fine. It is impossible for the authors' of the debugger to anticipate the speed of your code.

I've never used "watch expressions" nor the perl debugger and I don't find any insult or hostility in the quoted documentation.

Patches for peoples' attitudes are submitted all the time, but only the possessor of the attitude can apply the patch.

Be well,
rir