I think the bold part is something which for someone like myself is very important. Perl is a language that is relatively easy to start with. Using nothing more than perlintro and perlfunc a novice can start typing away and produce his/her first scripts. They may not look pretty or be the most efficient, but with a bit of effort they'll get the job done. When compared to the amount of basic knowledge one needs to even produce "hello world" in C or Java this is a huge asset.

As for a more rigid dialect, I can't help but feel this highly depends on the circumstances. When seen in the context of a large organization I think it is this very organization itself that needs to manage which dialect is spoken throughout the project. Besides, Perl isn't the only language one can write horrible code in :-) In any case, long story short, any project involving more than 1 person needs to have some ground rules on how to work. My personal approach would be to create something like perlstyle, albeit more specific, and simply make sure everyone adheres to those rules. It's a lot easier to demand that people adapt their own styles to "the greater good" once there's paychecks backing up the arguments.