And would allow for constructions like

  open FILE, "filename.txt" or die

Which is nice enough to read (and can be seen in actual examples around the web: http://www.perlfect.com/articles/perlfile.shtml )

The semicolon wars frustrate me. We have an arbiter of what's correct/valid syntax and what isn't. It's the freaking lexer, heaping additional prescriptivism on top for something as trivial as semicolons is irritating. If your code has ambiguity problems, fix it by writing unambiguous code. Semicolons are not the only way.