Grammars and proper unicode support are where my main interests lie with the language.

I use Perl to "get shit done" (GSD) it's not sexy, it's not my main job, hell, it's barely reusable. But using Perl has been the difference between failure/late delivery and success/early delivery/under-budget more times than I can even remember.

As late as the end of last year I has hacking Perl 5 code as a side project to GSD and took a project that went from not-existing because the scope was unfeasible for the next 3 calendar years to existing and producing measurable results 3 weeks later. That work got me a promotion and then a new better job making more money (and not doing Perl work) and overall joy and happiness because I was the guy that GSD (and Perl made that happen).