I'm suprised you didn't find an answer in your extensive research. For me, the perl motto says it all:

There's more than one way to do it.

Even if you know perl inside and out, sometimes it just takes a different approach to solve a problem. I know that my perl skills have improved three-fold since hanging out on PerlMonks, mainly because I'm exposed to fellow programmers, each with their own style. Which perl has alot of. Style that is. Programmers too, but lots of style :-)