No it's quite a serious & well written module. Hopefully it will become part of perl5i - https://metacpan.org/module/perl5i

  &_ is an explicit $_   You use $* or &* when you need to check $_[0] first.
  
  So &_ is more correct with general map but $* (and &*) will work also in 
  this autobox example (in fact i had used it in my first edit but preferred 
  aesthetics of &_ especially with previous usage of $* only being deprecated 
  in 5.10).

NB. Above in code just for aesthetics!