I don't think it's a matter of ignorance rather a matter of flexibility. If they could co-exist, I would have no problem with it. As far as 'blub', I know Paul a bit and in my experience he is a really brilliant guy but he is certainly TOOWTDIAIM (There Only One Way To Do It And It's Mine.) so I'll take that comment with a little bit of salt :)

If type casting could be done without losing anything, great. I'm sure I would make good use for it as I have everything in Perl I've seen so far but if it were not an option, I'd find something else to program in.