... isn't  $hash-{$key} pointing to  %hash? What am I missing?

You're missing the point that the expressions  $hash{foo} and  $hash->{foo} refer to different and quite separate hashes.

>perl -wMstrict -le
"my %hash = ( foo => 'bar' );
 my $hash = { foo => 'not_bar_at_all' };
 ;;
 print qq{what is foo? $hash{foo}};
 print qq{what is foo? $hash->{foo}};
"
what is foo? bar
what is foo? not_bar_at_all
[download]