'Have had "." in my $PATH for 20 years. It's never been a problem... and probably saved me several hundred thousand keystrokes.
Having to worry about there being an "ls" in the current dir is about the same as worrying whether or not there are multiple versions of _any_ binary elsewhere in $PATH.
Having to worry about there being an "ls" in the current dir is about the same as worrying whether or not there are multiple versions of _any_ binary elsewhere in $PATH.
This is a non-issue.