I appreciate what you're saying here (and I did read it slowly and carefully :) ). There's another off topic discussion about the need to standardize aspects of communication via refereed journals. In the ACS and APA examples, the reference standards allow anyone (who knows the standards) to easily go and look up the references, and are part of the rules to publish in journals governed by these bodies. (Theoretically, depending on your library, access to materials, you know.) Same thing applies to standardization of communication protocols, etc.
Again, these were examples that I had on the top of my head. Perl is great due to TIMTOWTDI, and there is no reason to change it, or to change comments. :)
