If what I write below is not helpful (or worse), please accept my apologies.

I have long wanted to believe that Perl6 is destined for belated success. But I'm going to have to give up that position, and resign myself to the more realistic view that it's only destined for belatedness.

It does indeed sound like it might be time for you to let your P6 hopes go. Believing something about the future of P6 is faith really, and if you're in the dark about what's actually going on right now then it's blind faith, which I think you'll agree is ultimately unhealthy.

If you want to inspire people to regain hope and enthusiasm

I'm not trying to inspire people to regain hope and enthusiasm. I'm occasionally (about once a month) informing monks about what's going on in the P6 world and encouraging readers to consider exploring P6 -- especially the friendly and productive #perl6 vibe that Audrey bequeathed us (and which bares no recognizable relationship to the dumb drunks caricature one monk in particular would have the world believe).

And then a post announcing and congratulating progress in an aspect of the project that seems tangential to its success comes along, and I really believe it does the project a disservice, further turning people off to it.

I've reread my OP and I don't see how I was congratulating anyone. That certainly wasn't my intent. I'd appreciate clarification of what you saw as congratulatory.

I can see how my posts have put you off, and seem to you like a disservice to everyone, given that you were worried that P6 might not succeed and believed that what I have focused on was tangential. So, while I respectfully disagree, at least about my OP of this thread, I do get that my posts can leave you feeling discouraged or worse.

However, you can hopefully see things from my perspective too: I see what's actually going on with P6 because I follow the project; I want to occasionally (once a month or so) share P6 tidbits at the monastery; I post in this section because it says "if you want to share or discuss ... Perl 6 development, this is the place"; and my posts usually get positive votes with no significant downvotes, as is the case for this one at the time I write this.

As I said at the start, I think it might be healthy for you to let go of your hopes for P6. Then, the moment you notice a P6 post, and you don't like it, you'll be able to just ignore it because it won't matter to you. And if a post is interesting, well, you can read it without pain because you won't be getting your hopes up based on blind faith.