The most common complaints about Perl tend to be about the code of people who don't know how to write Perl. Since when is it reasonable to judge a language on how the amateurs use it, instead of the professionals?
Perl does have its warts, but no language is an exception to that. When you learn to use a language well, the warts no longer matter. You get into the habit of writing code in a way that doesn't brush up against them, and that holds true for every language out there.
To clarify any mention of Perl 6, you need to realize Perl 6 isn't Perl. It is a whole different language with a really bad name. I know this has caused great confusion, but Perl 5 is extremely stable, still being developed, and not going anywhere. You don't need your Perl 5 programs to run in a Perl 6 interpreter any more than you would need them to run in a Python interpreter.
I have written my share of code in other languages, but I always return to Perl. As a C and Unix programmer, it feels like a very natural fit in ways that other languages completely do not. It has amazing string parsing, a superb (though extremely misunderstood) OO system, tons of great libraries, direct interfaces to POSIX and other system interfaces, really good database interfaces, networking, and protocol wrappers, very flexible interfaces to native code, and a really brilliant and well evolved design.
While you should always use the right tool for the job, Perl is a better choice far more often than people are realizing these days. There is so much anti-Perl sentiment out there, and the great majority of it is completely misplaced and made by people who haven't properly learned how to use Perl.