LMAO
You don't have to use $v1 but $1. Using $1 also gives those old mirc users a safe bet for this code to work for them 100%.
Your absolutely right that I could have just used $1, I only used $v1 out of habbit but the fact is that the $v1 and $v2 variables were introduced in 07/07/2004 in mIRC v6.16.
I seriously doubt we should take the time to concern ourselves with people still running something that old. Any effort to that end should be put towards getting those people to finally upgrade their mircs.