It's easier to get someone to learn a new language then it is to turn a web-programmer into a systems programmer, or an applications programmer into a system administrator.

I should start with that I agree and that I am a Perl lover.

That said, it is quite a time investment to learn Perl. And it doesn't stay in the head easily, either -- and needs more work than most environments to keep current.

That is the disadvantage of not being minimal and have a totally non-orthogonal set of libraries (yes, they couldn't be done any other way, probably).

Some tools are just more of an investment to keep proficient with.