I think the comparison to perl isn't fair. It's pretty accepted that () => is a function type construct. It mimics lambdas and function calls in many other languages. Perl did really crazy stuff like storing regex results in obscure global variables.

As for () =>, it can make a big difference in scenarios like `myArray.map(a => a.foo)` versus `myArray.map(function(a) { return a.foo })`