I think you're right about the 'if' condition. Not sure what I was thinking, though it's now in there and I've already uploaded.
By default, the deprecate() sub will only run if you're running tests (it checks for the $ENV{HARNESS_ACTIVE} variable). If, for some reason, this variable is true in your code, you can set $ENV{PERL_DEVEL_DEPRECATE_OFF} to a true value to disable the deprecation. Of course, as previously pointed out, merely omitting the 'die' date ensures that no fatal error will occur.
