First of all: you say you know arrayref is faster than hashref - but is the combination of taking an arrayref and then stuffing it into an array by hand really faster than hashref? You have to consider the possibility that the time you saved by using the arrayref is subsequently wasted by that long raft of assignment statements.
Second, how often is this loop going to execute? If this loop happens 10 times per execution of your program, you probably wasted more time typing all those assignments than you saved by using arrayref. If the loop executes 10_000_000 then it is probably worth your while to benchmark both solutions, and judge for yourself which is really faster.
