I have found that the best way to learn a subject is to teach it to someone else. When I have had difficult problems to solve over the past two years I always describe the problem to my wife and how I am trying to solve it (and recently my son as well - he is going to be one great Perl hacker). This usually results in a smack to the forehead and a mad dash back to the computer.
By actively posting to perlmonks I plan on getting the same benefit as well as benefitting from the very significant knowledge of the numerous perlmonks.
Thanks for the reply and ++.