that looks like the very definition of dereferencing to me

I thought you meant $gv vs *$gv

it's not obvious that $val needs dereferencing.

Completely false.

"@foo" returns the list of elements in the array. "$foo" does not.

According to you, (A) and (B) and (C) should be the same?

A: @m = $x;
B: @m = @$x;
C: @m = $$x;
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The only thing that may not be obvious is that globs can be "dereferenced" instead of having to do *$gv{ARRAY}.

As far as I can tell, the only time you don't have to dereference the variable is when you use it as a filehandle

Both the "@" and "print" operators accept a scalar containing a glob. The first peeks into the ARRAY slot. The latter peeks into the IO slot. Both "dereference" the glob.