I agree with all you've said here. I've played with all the new features you stated, but none ever provided me with enough benefit over what existed and I was used to, so I gave them up quickly. However, I'm sure some people do find value in them, it's just that I don't so much.

I'm going to try postderef, but in any real code I'll stick to the old fashioned way as it's guaranteed backward compatible (CPANTesters) and I just can't see it being removed any time in the even non-forseeable future.

-stevieb