I think the immediate problem is that curlies are re metas. Escape them as:

if ( /if.*?\{/s .. /.*?\}.*?else/s ) {
     $_ =~ s/\{//;
     $_ =~ s/\}//;
}
[download]

That's not the only problem, though. Consider the result of applying that to:

if (c=e) {
    call pgme;
    call pgmd;
}
if (c=d) {
    call pgmd;
    call pgme;
}
else {
    call pgmd;
    call pgmc;
}
[download]

You may get some use of Text::Balanced.

Update: Added s switch to matching, ++dmmiller2k.

After Compline,
Zaxo