'First' and 'last' tags on MENU_LOCAL_TASK tabs

If I put the 'die' command right after

$tabs = $vars['tabs'];

I got the blank white screen. But if I put it after

$items = explode("\n", $tabs);

then I got the proper output like this:

Array
(
    [0] => 

    * View
    * [1] => Addresses
    * [2] => Bookmarks
    * [3] => Edit
    * [4] => Files
    * [5] => Orders
    * [6] => Track page visits
      [7] => 


)

Clearly we now have "view" showing up, so, I commented out the following lines, and it seemed to be working, .first was assigned to "view" as it should except now .last isn't getting assigned at all. I guess that makes sense though because from the output above there's an extra number at the end of the list (7).

function phptemplate_preprocess_page(&$vars)
{  
    $tabs = $vars['tabs'];
    $items = explode("\n", $tabs);
    //die('<pre>' . print_r($items, true) . '</pre>');
    //$opening_ul = array_shift($items);
    //array_pop($items);
    //if(strpos($items[count($items) - 1], '</ul>') !== FALSE)
    //{
    //    array_pop($items);
    //}
   
    // process the first item
    if(strpos($items[0], 'li class=') !== FALSE) // does it have a class yet?
    {
        $items[0] = str_replace('li class="', 'li class="first ', $items[0]);
    }
    else
    {
        $items[0] = str_replace('li', 'li class="first"', $items[0]);
    }

    // process the last item
    $lastindex = count($items) - 1;
    if(strpos($items[$lastindex], 'li class=') !== FALSE)
    {
        $items[$lastindex] = str_replace('li class="', 'li class="last ', $items[$lastindex]);
    }
    else
    {
        $items[$lastindex] = str_replace('li', 'li class="last"', $items[$lastindex]);
    }
    $items = implode(PHP_EOL, $items);
    // create a string from the array
    $vars['tabs'] = $opening_ul . PHP_EOL . $items . PHP_EOL . '</ul>';
}

So then I changed this:

    // process the last item
    $lastindex = count($items) - 1;

To this:

    // process the last item
    $lastindex = count($items) - 2;

And it properly assigned .last, but this seems like a hack to me and I imagine I'll probably run into issues down the road. Any ideas?