I frequently have this argument with junior programmers.. like you I have coded in enough languages in my time to use parenthesis almost always. It frustrates some people but there can be no confusion to myself or the compiler of the intended consequences.
I always code defensively because I don't want to have to deal with bugs that I've created.
You wrote: "I also prefer using Perl's named operators (and, or, etc.) over it's symbolic ones". I personally prefer the symbolic ones because I've been reading C from a young age and they are very natural to me (just as "x" "+" is as natural as saying "multiplied by" or "plus"). And Perl named operators bind low which can frequently cause the very trouble illustrated by this thread. As an aside I came across a junior developer in our organisation who made the very same precedence error (low precedence "and") a few months ago, and this same junior developer had the audacity to deride my C programming background assuming that I couldn't possibly program in Perl as a result..
