The only thing I can say for certain is that Perl has a future with me. I like it, therefor I use it. It works.

My position exactly. But like me, you must be in the position of mostly choosing what you use. That puts you in a very small minority of coders. Most get told what they have to use; and it isn't Perl.

And it isn't going to be unless something changes. And nothing is going to change unless we, the existing Perl community decide it will.