Which you should use is probably 80% down to what your team prefers. If you all are used to Java, then Java will be easier. OTOH, you might all just "feel like" learning something new.
Never mind how much people get paid. Start worrying about that at your age and you will be a wage slave before you are thirty.
With those sage counsels out of the way, I can tell you a bit about JSP equivalents in Perl.
- HTML::Mason is a nifty solution for embedding perl in HTML. I've got direct experience of this. It is powerful and flexible and combines well with mod_perl.
- HTML::Template is a simpler templating solution. It enforces better separation of code from presentation than Mason. OTOH you might not want that if you are not doing something that requires a very prettified front end.
- Other things to look at: Template::ToolKit, EmbPerl ... anyone got any experience with these?
dave hj~