Who are 'the masses' here?
Honestly I think some languages that have been over medialised have more suffered than benefited. (sorry, pure supposition here, nothing to support my theory). Do the guys who run the china place down the road need to know about perl? Or do you mean budding programmers? These I would hope will here about perl should it ever be relevant to something they do.
Not to be elitist or anything, but do we want the whole world knocking on our door? I'd prefer *real programmers* (definition left for the reader), than people just trying to create their website and not needing it anywhere else.. (Still September, isnt it? :)
C.