? dangerous paradigm in perl.c global destruction ?

I was thinking about this paradigm that is in perl.c perl_destruct()

     SvREFCNT_dec(PL_utf8_toupper);
     PL_utf8_toupper = NULL;

If for some reason that SV does not have a ref count of 1 (or less), 
then it will be inappropriately set to NULL.

It seems to me that it would be safer to free it unconditionally than to 
decrement the ref count.

Is there a problem with doing that?  If no problem, which free function 
should be used?

• ? dangerous paradigm in perl.c global destruction ? by Karl Williamson
• Re: ? dangerous paradigm in perl.c global destruction ? by hv
• Re: ? dangerous paradigm in perl.c global destruction ? by Karl Williamson