Like you zdog, I'm not a Perl guru, and I've had similar doubts about my own modest level increases here at the monastery. But, as kapper points out below, XP reflects PM community involvement, as well as Perl proficiency.

The only thing I question is "usually vote ++ on anything that is more than ten lines because I get intimidated and usually don't read it". Ya know, you don't have to use all your votes each day :^)

I'm not intimidated by advanced posts from master monks like httptech or lhoward or ???, but I also try to post only when I can add something of value.