Well, if you're going to shoot yourself in the foot, you might as well do it elegantly. ;-)

I also think it is a very bad idea for people to go around using soft references like that. That's why I posted my array suggestion below (and why I felt compelled to mention that it was a bad idea; out loud, as it were). Besides the danger of overwriting someone else's (or your own!) variables, there's the simple fact that, once you're done creating all those variables, you won't know which they were! :-)

bbfu
Seasons don't fear The Reaper.
Nor do the wind, the sun, and the rain.
We can be like they are.