since I was busy at YAPC::EU when this was written and afterwards an offtopic part of this thread got my attention first, I just wanted to add what I usually say when talking about Perl Best Practices:
The goal of PBP is not to be a list of rules. Then it could have been much shorter. Its goal is making you think about how you program and try to be consistent. The "rules" can vary from person to person or from company to company, although I agree that I often wish more people would use the suggested practices in the book, especially the ones I use ;-)