This inspired me at the time to write PerlX::QuoteOperator (http://search.cpan.org/dist/PerlX-QuoteOperator/) which allows you to create new custom quote-like operators (http://perldoc.perl.org/perlop.html#Quote-Like-Operators).

So for example to create a URI quote-like operator called u:

    use PerlX::QuoteOperator u => {
        -emulate => 'q', 
        -with    => sub ($) {
            require URI;
            URI->new( $_[0] );
        }, 
    };
    
    my $uri = u(http://google.com);