Well, there's a few things you can do, personally, to save perl. First thing, stop thinking of mod_perl when you think of a faster CGI. Instead, think of FCGI. It's everything you say you wish mod_perl was.

Also, while you've got some points with perl6, I think the community can show at least as much by getting 5.10 out the door, and good work is being done by the perl5-porters on that front.

Thanks for the post, though. Esp. the link.

Edit: The link I meant was How Does a Programming Language Stagnate, by chromatic. The replies are particularly interesting. Thanks, jdporter, for pointing out that I didn't specifiy what link. (And thanks for correcting my spelling too.)