If a bank gave away the information they hold on me, I'd face the risk of losing all my property.

If PerlMonks gives away all the information they hold on me, the worst thing that can possibly happen is that someone might pretend to be me on PerlMonks.

I really don't think the two scenarios are comparable.

Yes, storing passwords as plaintext was stupid. But let's get some perspective here. "Outrage" is a strange reaction to the leaking of passwords for a simple discussion forum; would it really affect your life significantly if someone else posted as Zen on PerlMonks? And anyone who was reusing the same password for more serious purposes elsewhere was being just as stupid.

Hard to explain to someone like you who fundamentally agrees with blaming victims. I've done what was asked of me. Please do the right thing.

Storing password either in plaintext or hashed version is not really much of consequence as after supplying login data, password is sent in plaintext from your user agent to the web server. (I would surely change my tune if/when the login starts taking place over an encrypted connection and passwords would still be stored in plaintext.)

That is same as sensitive (for some definitions of it) emails being sent from banks or family in plaintext. How does it matter if they are encrypted after receiving?