Suppose we want to monitor dangerous gasses in a deep mine. The sensors and wires are pre-determined and our job is to make a monitoring system, to deal with it.

The first thing we run into is cost. 3 redundant computers running Perl, are easily obtainable and cheap; whearas the radiation hardened ROM monitors are expensive and need to be special ordered. This factor can be very important in cash-strapped economies, and may lead to people NOT replacing a faulty ROM unit, due to cost...( after all ... 2 monitors should be as good as 3 right? And the current budget only allowed 1 spare unit, and we used it last week).

Then we have the problem of on-site modifications. Like what happens when its discovered that the sensors change output levels with age, and need calibration on-site. Thats simple to do with the Perl computers, but with a ROM system, they will need to put a post-it note on it, saying every reading between .05 and 6.3 must be adjusted by log(x) percent. Or how about the manager is going out of town, and wants realtime email updates messaged to him? Ooops, the ROM didn't allow for that.

I think you can see where I'm going with this. There are so many sitautions, where the infrastructure is cash-strapped, yet human lives are at risk. Furthermore, cheap computers and Perl is within the budget, but custom ROM chips are not. So the Perl solution would probably be very useful in these situations, and would save many lives, even though it has drawbacks.