I sort of said it before. I'll say it again. If this is Perl losing momentum, shovel it on. My new gig is 50% more money than I've ever been paid before (sort of, not counting options and such), meaning a raise of tens of thousands. Perl could probably have 1/10th the support and community it has today and still have a nice and valuable niche. I've been contacted out of the blue by recruiters ... I think 6 times in the last year; last time was yesterday. Decent Perl devs are really quite hard to find. (Sidenote: I'd like to again say that it is largely the wisdom, clarity, experience, and willingness to share of many monks here that made me anything more than a crude dilettante with Perl.)
Also, I still hear good things about Ruby, but I also hear bad things now which was not the case two years ago. The Ruby honeymoon is over. People are starting to judge it as they should: just another tool and not the hot new silver bullet.