I read the same A6 as you, but came to a very different conclusion:

The one thing that really excites and keeps me from despairing when seeing all that syntax is that essentially, Perl 6 will still be a simple language. You'll be able to use just what you need, just like with Perl 5. I like that.

While I agree that Perl 5 is successful (and very much so!), I challenge the notion of it being "small" and "elegant". Well, it is elegant in many respects, but it could be more elegant in some respects. I think the problem is that the Apocalypses have to define all the special cases, whereas people interested in learning the language have to ignore all the special cases first. That might make it more difficult to get an unbiased view of what bread-and-butter Perl 6 will look like.