in reply to Intercept any changes to the sv_refcnt/SvREFCNT of an object

Can't, short of making changes to the Perl source.

#define SvREFCNT(sv) (sv)->sv_refcnt #define SvREFCNT_inc(sv) ((PL_Sv=MUTABLE_SV(sv)) ? (++(SvREFCNT(PL_Sv) +),PL_Sv) : NULL)

As you can see,

SvREFCNT_inc(sv)

boils down to

++( (sv)->sv_refcnt )

What's the bigger picture?