For example: "--eeeeeeeeeee1" would be accepted as a number when it's definitely not (although perl could evaluate that string in numeric context giving it a value of 1).

Eh, no. "--eeeeeeeeeee1" in numerical context is 0. When casting a string to a numeric value, Perl will always look at the beginning of a string. Something that starts with "--" cannot be a number; hence, it'll get the value 0.

$ perl -wE 'say 0 + "--eeeeeeeeeee1"'
Argument "--eeeeeeeeeee1" isn't numeric in addition (+) at -e line 1.
0
$
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