I agree, especially with the second point. I still use Delphi/Kylix, but could never find anyone that would pay me to do it around here.

I have found work doing VB/Access VBA/VBScript programming, as much as I hate to admit it. You cannot say VB is a great or powerful language, but a lot of people are running Windows these days.

My advice to you is to stick with Perl and C++ for now. Get some work on a few big projects to sharpen your programming skills. Build a strong foundation. Worry about other languages later.