Some progress: Installing (yum) xorg-x11-fonts-Type1 on the FC13 box has the Tk apps actually displaying something different--not the same as the FC13 box as I'm getting a serif font instead of Helvetica as specified in the code, but looks like I'm heading in the right direction. Interestingly, the version yum installed was for FC12.

So looks like Perl was not the culprit. With this on top of other things, I can really find nothing to recommend FC13 to developers.

Last word on the subject FC13 was also missing the 100dpi x11 fonts. I did a standard install from the DVD adding the servers and programming environments. Looks like X11 fonts are no longer "standard". This release also lacks a DMI driver for the Intel chipset. Devs stay clear.