I'm not up on the newest Perls, but back in the day I wrote a lot of Perl 5. It always felt like having a nice conversation with my computer where I was eventually able to convince it to provide me with what I wanted it to do and sometimes it would just make leaps and figure it out for me or do what I meant.

It's very specifically not a language that works like a finely tuned scientific instrument. It has the messiness of a paintbrush for an impressionist not the scalpel precision of an architect's toolkit.

It has just such a different feel that people who don't come from that mindset won't get it. It's not a superior language, just one that has a different way about it.