As a fellow bioinformatician and programmer, I have to say that I could not possibly care less about these things. They're slick marketing around some slick code that some people find useful. A sizable number of modules on CPAN (though a small fraction of the total) are just as useful, but not as aggressively marketed.
I am not sure what the problem is with "slick marketing around... slick code," if any. I, for one, welcome it. Is this purported slickness harming perl? It seems that the last sentence in the quote above implies perhaps that the sizable number of modules on CPAN that are just as useful should indeed be aggressively, and hopefully, slickly, marketed, non?
when small people start casting long shadows, it is time to go to bed