But I think the goal has changed from "Let's fix Perl 5" to being a more bigger goal of developing a language what Perl 5 would likely look after say 3 decades of iterations. I can't say if that is good from a purely practical perspective. But it does sound like worthwhile goal to chase.
Lets take a look at Python 3 itself. Yes they finished the project, but 5 years after that- Now what? Users don't seem to a have a valid reason to move away from 2.x series for merely small time incremental improvements, while forced to migrate bulk of the infrastructure and code for nearly ~0% productivity gains.
Perl 6 could have come out by 2005-2006, and if it were to be merely a incremental non-backwards compatible change over p5. We would be having similar posts about p6 as we are having now about Python 3. Imagine a refined, yet not that beneficial p5 breaking CPAN. I am sure you wouldn't like such a situation.