Clean Up Old Comments and Commented-Out Code

If any of these removed chunks are important, I'll gladly revert them!
I wouldn't have touched it if it weren't for the comment. :smile:

The comment makes me think that the original coder didn't believe parentheses were a good and obvious way of solving the problem.  (Faced with the same situation, I wouldn't have guessed they helped, either.)

The `{;` solution is suggested in the [first PerlMonks question on the topic I ran across](http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=958673) as well.  (I don't know if that qualifies as documentation of it being a "good way" to resolve the ambiguity.)

I did think it was funny to run across this so soon after the other thread!