I'd suggesting that you use software that's intended for mailing lists. (listserv, majordomo, mailman, etc.)

They handle throttling well, some of them can automatically deal with bounced messages, and they provide a way for recipients to opt-out, if they so wish. Any current mailing list software should also have ways to restrict who is allowed to send to the list (either a moderation feature, or completely rejecting those not permitted).

There's no reason to try to make something from scratch that has what might even be a longer legacy than perl. (I know I used to use L-Soft's Listserv product on a bitnet node)