> It really is in which language
> do the programmers feel most
> comfortable with.
I do not agree here. Certain languages have certain advantages. A lot of programmers have a feeling about different languages. There are only a few studies about the effectiveness of different languages.
A good starting point to understand the differences is an article available online:
Lutz Prechelt. An empirical comparison of seven programming
languages. IEEE Computer 33(10):23-29, October 2000.
(http://page.mi.fu-berlin.de/~prechelt/Biblio/jccpprt_computer2000.pdf)
Regarding DB, you should also reflect some performance issues. There was a section "how fast is the DBI?" in the CPAN documentation. I cannot find it anymore. Must have been removed.
But I'd say it is not DBI itself you should point your finger if you have performance issues.