Keep in mind that the use of & without using any other wildcards will prevent it from triggering with more words.
!test &
That means it will trigger if you have !test followed by a single "word". It won't trigger just for !test and it won't trigger from something like !test this and this. So you'll never have a $3 in your example. & is used when you know how many "words" there will be, but the words can change and you want it only to trigger when the exact number of words are there. Example: !test & & will trigger with !test followed by 2 words (no more, no less).
