Hey, don't lose heart! Here's another PERLophile... I use it pretty much exclusively at work. I agree totally that PHP is far more suited for web apps, but our department is responsible for a lot more of our shopping cart backend processing, billing, and database administration... PERL fits the bill pretty well for us. I continue to be amazed by how much PERL can still do...
I don't know how others feel, but I always thought it would be a good first language to learn... I guess with the focus on OO programming these days, PERL may not be the best, but...
It takes a lot of the guesswork out of the syntax, which allows you to focus more on the logic of things, without having to fret over whether something is an int, a double, or whatever.... or having to convert a string to an int to multiply, etc ...
Anyway, I love it. Feel free to email me if you ever want to share PERL stories
Talleyrand