As a dedicated vim user, I can handle that side of things fine, but when it comes to Emacs, I'm Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Stupid.

I used vi for 7 years. It took me only 7 days to learn emacs. I have been using emacs ever since. I think that cperl-mode is the best. You can integrate the perldoc, keyword-help, function-help, etags, (i)menu of subroutines, debugger etc. With advanced usages, you might be able to integrate perlmonks, cpan, online perldoc, perl mailing list... Now that's what I am looking for easeness.