Forgive me if I don't answer to your questions, but I believe you simply can't sit down for {your favourite number here} years and hope to become a {your favourite language here}. This rule is even stronger for Perl.
Then, what makes a good Perl programmer?
In my experience, it is the analysis of other people source code (CPAN!), ideas, algorithm principles and implementations, computer science books, ability to learn, ... whatever makes you a better programmer independently? from the language you actually use.
Perl just happens to be a very entertaining and powerful way to express our programming ideas into source code.
