To respond to some of these statements:

• Python is often taught in universities, Perl is not.

A relative teaches Perl for bioinformatics at one local university. This is not part of the CS dept. I don't think this statement can be accurate.

• Python is the defacto language to do stuff with the Raspberry Pi, the wildly popular cheap computer.

Perl is installed by default. What can you do with Python that can't be done with Perl on the Pi?

• Perl (the community) has a perception of being a bit elitetist and not n00b friendly. Look at PerlMonks for god sake, to post this I need to use "PerlMonks-approved HTML".

Having spent some time in other communities in the last month while investigating some things my experience of this is that other communities are more elitist than the perl community. YMMV.

• Being a developer has become a lot more accessible so you don't have to be a massive geek and wear a huge beard to write something. I can get Ubuntu and install it for free easily and it'll "just work", clone code from github and away I go. No longer do I have to hand-hack my X86 config, compile my Perl and waste hours with Makefiles. Such neo-geeks are going to want something that lets them be productive and they look at what is popular or "#trending".

What do you have to 'hand-hack' to work using perl? Avoiding the system perl is wise but it's trivial to install your own perl elsewhere. Perlbrew automates the task.

• Good Perl people are getting harder and more expensive to find.

Good people are getting harder to find, for various definitions of the word good. This isn't a perl problem.

• Perl/CGI/mod_perl was at one time the go-to technology: now there is now more choice among web frameworks: Python/Django, PHP/CodeIgniter/Sli, Ruby/Sinatra etc etc - all with proven sites out there and large vibrant user communities, books, training courses etc

There are more modern Perl frameworks, why didn't you mention them?

Update: fixed typo.