What prevents editors from searching on ... vs …?

But mostly, I take exception to your characterization of perl as a minimalist language. It is most certianly not. It has dozens of features that aren't minimal -- that could be easily built out of smaller building blocks. Hashes, for example. It's not difficult to make a hash out of simpler bits. There's no reason for it to be built in to the language, when it can be written inside of the language. That's a minimalist point of view -- but easy hashes are part of what makes perl so nice to deal with. C# and VB and a slew of other languages have objects that are very hash-like... but them being objects instead of first-level concepts makes them annoying to work with.

Perl5 also has lots of things that aren't used, in pratice. Perl6 will get rid of some of those, and introduce some new ones. Also, perl6 is much less a language for beginners then perl5. There are a lot of techniques that you can use in perl6 that are difficult to understand for beginners, or can be. This also means that in the hands of an expert, you can do a lot more with a lot less. It's not a question of better or worse, it's a question of goals, and I think I'll like writing perl6 more then I liked writing perl5 (and I like writing perl5 a lot).