You're a strange one. No one has said that perl5 will be anything but perl5. However, perl5 is a moving target that just happens to be moving towards perl6 by incorporating features that have been vetted in pugs or at least semi-specced in a Synopsis or two. Does that mean that perl5 will become perl6? Certainly not! But it does mean that the conceptual gap between the two will be smaller. Ergo, future perl5s will be stepping stones between the perl5 of today and the perl6 of tomorrow.

I agree with most of your second paragraph although I don't view perl5 as a threat to perl6 but rather more as gentle but firm encouragement to do a good job. Your comment WRT separate communities is something that only time will tell. Right now, it's entirely the case for me. I participated in pugs early on, but when I'd rattle off a perl6 answer to a perl5 problem at work (unconciously for the most part as I was thinking in perl6 quite a bit), it became clear to me that I'd need to stay away from perl6 for a while to keep my sanity. However, when there is a perl6 compiler available for production use where I can happily write perl5 or perl6 code and it Just Works, then, I think this bifurcation that you mention won't exist. We'll just have to wait and see (or take action to ensure whatever outcome we desire ;-)