With a bit of code:

  public interface Functor<T> {
    T apply(T v);
  }

  public class Util {
    public static <T> List<T> collect(List<T> l, Functor<T> f) {
      List<T> result = new ArrayList<T>();
      for (T v : l) {
        result.add(f.apply(v));
      }
      return result;
    }
  }

You can write:

  List<String> l = ...;
  Util.collect(l, new Functor<String>() {public String apply(String v) {return v.toUpperCase();}});

Not as concise, but not that horrible either. :)

I never quite liked operator overloading, because of infix notation all operators need to retain their precedence.