I think the answer isn't really technical, or at the very least, not a problem with Everything, apache, or perl. All indications are saying the problem is with the database server getting overloaded. First off, mysql on freebsd isn't a happy thing, due to differences between Linux's threading model and freebsd's. The recent kernel upgrade should have helped with that, but it's still not good, just better. Secondly, trafic is increasing, possibly to the point where we need either a better DB server, or two DB servers. Two DB servers would probably require changing the way we do certian things, but not the point of rewriting everything.

Yeah, there are certian things that Everything could do better... but you should fix it, not rewrite it. Caching the code as bytecode, instead of evaling it, would help, but that's not a reason for a complete rewrite, just a fix.