And interesting idea, that perl is a metaphor for the decline of western society ... i rather like it :-)
But, since this is philsophical, there is no right/left/wrong, only opinion. In my opinion, as un-humble as it may be, the choices are what makes Perl great. As i have many time looked at my old code and thought "what in the hell was i thinkning ?", i do prefer that to spending years on a language and learning only that i can change the syntax the smallest bit with no noticable optimization. In short, the choices make for some horrible code, but they give me a sence of style with the way i do things .... without it, the decline of western society could be blamed on all writing the same code. None of us will ever know, and sometime, thats just fine.

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_{my own worst enemy}
-- MZSanford