I prefer good, well structured, clean, and cohesive code to the best comment any time. Perl, which is, to me, a language that is structured as a spoken language (assuming we would speak in routines, loops and variables), shouldn't (theoretically) be commented more than the obligatory synopsis, the API, and the overall i.e. the "man". If you have to explain anything beyond the overall things, you may need to rethink your code, not your comments.

If your code needs a comment to be understood, it would be better to rewrite it so it's easier to understand. (Notes on Programming in C - Rob Pike)

(Oh, and "hits the argument on the head and drives it right home"?)