People who dislike list slicing should avoid scripting languages, especially Perl.

Really? Just because I find list slices to avoid using $1 ugly? What else? People who don't like goto should avoid Perl? People who don't like m?? should avoid Perl? People who don't like code without warnings or strict?

@X = ($x =~ /#/g)[1,3];

Ain't working. Sure, for the given pattern, it works. Now, let's change the pattern a little, shall we:

    my $x = "1234";
    my @X = ($x =~ /(#)?/)[1,3];
    say scalar @X;  # defined(@X) is deprecated
    say "Matched" if $x =~ /(#)?/;
    __END__
    0
    Matched
[download]

So, @X is empty, yet the pattern matches.

It prints NO ... therefore, JavaFan, your assertions are FALSE and FALSE.

When I say "it doesn't always work", a single example where it does work isn't a contradiction.

Note also that Marshall wasn't doing it your way anyway, he put the list slice in scalar context.