in reply to Perl limits on number of open files?
As far as making an array of filehandles, the answer, using "bareword filehandles" like you have is no, or at least not an easy way. OTOH, using IO::File allows you to open things and create objects, which are much easier to deal with. (Technicaly, the two are not as disseperate as they first appear -- there's lots of interesting things that go on under the covers. Don't worry about it for now.)
As to the open files limit, I feel decently secure in saying that it's not perl's fault, but OSX's. Googling for "too many open files" OSX may (or may not) help.
In Section
Seekers of Perl Wisdom